Recipe for a Broken Heart

Chapter.11

Chapter 11 — Slowly

The weekend stretched out long and strange, Camille caught somewhere between wanting to replay Friday night on a loop and wanting to forget it had happened entirely.

She threw herself into distractions instead — reorganizing the pantry, taking Marcus shopping for work clothes with his first paycheck, cooking an elaborate dinner Sunday night that filled the apartment with the smell of roasted chicken. Anything to keep her mind off the memory of Étienne's face inches from hers in a rain-fogged car.

It mostly worked. Mostly.

"You've reorganized that pantry three times this weekend," her mother observed on Sunday evening. "Want to tell me what's actually going on?"

Camille dropped into a kitchen chair. "Something almost happened. With Étienne. Friday night, in the car."

Her mother's eyebrows rose. "Almost happened, meaning—"

"Meaning he almost kissed me, and I panicked, and my phone rang, and I used it as an excuse to run inside." Camille sighed. "I wanted it to happen, Ma. That's the part that scares me. I wanted it so badly I could barely breathe, and then the second it was about to happen, all I could think about was how much it would hurt if it went wrong."

Her mother took Camille's hands. "Baby, I understand the fear. You've seen exactly how much it can hurt. But refusing to ever risk it again isn't actually safety. It just feels like safety. Real safety is learning to tell the difference between someone who's going to hurt you and someone who isn't. From everything you've told me about this man — the way he's shown up for you, the way he told you about his own heartbreak instead of hiding it — that doesn't sound like David to me."

"What if I'm wrong, though?"

"Then it will hurt, and you will survive it, because you are the strongest person I have ever raised." Her mother's voice softened. "But you cannot spend the rest of your life so afraid of a maybe that you refuse every good thing standing right in front of you. That's not protecting your heart. That's just a slower way of losing it."

Monday morning arrived with its usual indifference. Camille dressed carefully and told herself it had nothing to do with wanting Étienne to notice, and immediately knew that was a lie.

The office felt charged when she arrived. They didn't speak directly until nearly noon, both apparently equally determined to avoid the conversation. It was Priya who finally forced the issue by scheduling a joint project meeting neither could reasonably decline.

"You've been avoiding me," he said quietly, once Priya had left them alone in the conference room.

"I haven't been avoiding you. I've been busy."

"Camille." He said her name gently. "I think we should talk about Friday."

"I panicked. It's not about you. It's about me, and everything that happened before you, and how terrified I am of feeling this much for someone again."

"I understand fear, Camille. Better than most people, I think. I am not asking you to stop being afraid. I am simply asking you not to let the fear decide everything before either of us has a chance to find out what this actually is."

"And what if what this actually is turns out to hurt exactly as much as I'm afraid it will?"

"Then it will hurt," he said simply. "But I would rather risk that with you than spend the rest of my time here wondering what might have happened if one of us had been brave enough to try."

"That's a very French thing to say, you know. Very dramatic."

"I have been told this before. Usually by people who have just lost an argument with me." The faintest hint of a smile crossed his face. "I prefer to think of it as honesty rather than drama."

"They can look very similar," Camille agreed, some of her own tension easing at the small exchange of humor.

"I'm not ready to jump yet," she said finally. "But I don't want to keep running from you either. Can we just take it slowly? See where it goes, without either of us pretending nothing's happening?"

Something in his face loosened. "Slowly, I can do. I have never been in a particular hurry about the things that actually matter."

"Good," Camille said, smiling for the first time all day, the tight knot of anxiety in her chest finally beginning to loosen.

They left the conference room separately, some unspoken agreement that walking out together might invite more attention than they wanted. But something had shifted, and Camille found herself humming under her breath at her desk.

Priya caught it instantly. "You're humming. You never hum. What happened in that conference room?"

"Nothing happened."

"Nothing happened, but you're humming show tunes like you just won the lottery." Priya narrowed her eyes. "Fine, keep your secrets. But I'm putting my money on you two by Christmas."

"There's still a betting pool?"

"There's always a betting pool, Camille." Priya wandered off, leaving Camille laughing quietly, the day feeling lighter than it had in weeks.

That evening, walking to the train, Camille felt something settle in her chest — not certainty, but something adjacent to it, a cautious hope she was slowly allowing herself to hold onto.

Her phone buzzed just as she reached the station.

Thank you for today. For being honest with me.

Thank you for being patient. Goodnight, Étienne.

Goodnight, Camille.

She rode the train home with her phone still in her hand, the small exchange sitting warm in her chest, and thought, for the first time in two long years, that maybe her mother had been right all along about hope not being the enemy after all.