Page 243 of A Taste of Vanilla

“I can’t keep being someone you come back to only when there’s a problem,” she says.

His face breaks. “Marley.”

“I can’t. I love you. I do. But I cannot keep feeling grateful for scraps of you because you raised me and I know it was hard.”

A tear slips down his cheek.

“I needed my brother too, Warren. Not just someone who kept the lights on.”

Warren doesn’t answer.

I stand there in his shirt, crying in front of my best friend, realizing how broken everything is.

She grabs her tote bag. “I need to leave.”

Panic rushes through me. “Marley.”

She looks at me.

“I love you,” I say immediately. “I know that doesn’t fix this. I know I hurt you. I know I made you feel stupid. And I hate that I did that. I’ll keep apologizing, and I’m not asking you to forgive me right now.”

Her face crumples. “Stop being reasonable.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Stop apologizing too.” She pauses. “I love you too.”

Relief flows through me.

Then she adds, “But I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

I nod. “Okay.”

She looks at Warren.

“I love you,” he says.

Marley’s eyes fill. “I know.”

She walks down the stairs, and the door opens and closes.

The apartment settles around us. We don’t speak. I look at the bakery box on the table. The labels stacked neatly beside it.

Warren looks toward the stairs.

“I should get dressed,” I say softly.

Warren turns to me, his face wrecked in the quietest way. “Halston.”

“I can’t talk yet,” I tell him.

He stops.

“I’m not saying forever. I just can’t right now.”

He nods once.

He reaches for his undershirt on the chair, and I take off his T-shirt and hand it to him.