He’d sat up, rearranged his pillows until he was comfortable, and then he’d said, without an ounce of irony or sarcasm, that it was great that I was on this internal journey but he didn’t see a reason to make this public. He wanted it to be our little secret.

Hearing those words was like when I slice through my hand during dinner prep. That kind of cut doesn’t hurt at first. I only know I cut myself because the give on the blade is different in my own flesh than it is on the flesh of fruit or meat. But moments later I feel just how deep the blade went, through skin and into muscle.

Paul cut me in a way that bled all over, hurt for weeks after, left a scar. To hear the same sentiment from my mother would be like holding my wounded hand to the range and turning on the gas.

A notification pops up on the screen for my meeting with Amy about our new menu.

Great. Another meeting in which all my ideas will be turned down.

After sitting for so long my legs are stiff, I shuffle to the showers. I wash and get dressed quickly, stopping for one last look in the mirror. But I hardly recognize myself. Not because my cheeks are pink from the exertion or my hair is wet.

This isn’t me, quiet and scared. I’m not the kind of woman who’s afraid to speak her mind in her own kitchen. I couldn’t have made it to the finals of Pop-Up Kitchen by keeping my mouth shut.

My confidence is shot.

I don’t know whom I can trust anymore with these new, fragile pieces of myself. Not after I couldn’t trust my soon-to-be husband with them.

Another notification from Amy pops up on my screen. An apt reminder, since it’s not entirely true, that I can’t trust anyone. More than half of the staff at Amy & May’s are queer and that’s not by accident. The restaurant is a safe space. If there was anyone to trust, I could probably trust Amy. I could tell her these new things about me and she’d think it was important.

But that’s not why I’ve kept my mouth shut. If I told her, she’d know. She’d clock it from the other end of the dining room. There would be no way for me to hide how completely and totally infatuated I am with tall, snarky, secretly delicate Amy Chambers.

Amy is wearing my favorite shirt. This shirt has the power to incite total panic in me if the fabric so much as brushes my wrist when she reaches past me in the kitchen. It’s that sweating, elevated heart rate, turned on like a teen browsing the underwear section of the Sears catalog kind of panic.

I never know where to look when she wears this shirt. Not at the shirt. I certainly cannot, under any circumstances, look at the shirt.

It’s just a shirt: a basic, white button-up blouse. The fabric isn’t the usual crisp kind used for an oxford, though. It’s looser. Probably a polyester blend. The way it drapes over her frame draws my eyes over her broad shoulders and the way she always, always stands with her shoulders back, her spine straight.