1.1 | Across the Way

Chapter One

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She had made it a habit to call me every Wednesday night but like always I had nothing to share. I loved my mother. I really did but her constant need to tell me to put myself out there had become shameless.

Like any good mother, she wanted me to get an education, to be independent but she wanted that as much as she wanted grandchildren. I had hoped that when my sister got married last May that any thought of children would be directed towards her but unfortunately that didn't happen.

Recently, I've gathered enough courage to tell her that kids were the last thing on my mind and that owning my own business took my full attention. I had bought my bakery right after college giving all the money I had to get it underway. After about a year, I started making just good enough profit that I was able to buy an apartment not far away.

Yet, my mother still didn't understand. It seemed every reason I had was an excuse for her. Did she recall how much it would cost to raise a child? She should know since she raised three of her own. Moreover, New York sure as hell wasn't cheap. If anything I have a decent amount of time to start a family being that I'm only twenty-five.

It had been the second week in a row that I've dodged her call and the guilt ate away at me. I knew in her own way her push was supposed to be for my own benefit but it also felt more to soothe her own anxieties about me dying alone, infertile and husbandless.

Setting my phone face down on the coffee table I flipped through Netflix-which has now become apart of my everyday routine. My days normally started with me waking up and getting ready, then I'd be at the bakery around four and work all day with a small break in between. When I had got home it had been Netflix and cuddling into my couch. My life would surely be defined as uneventful but I did like it that way.

Looking back now after I was through with high school and college I never really sustained any true friends and the only friend I had now was a seventy year old women with no desire to go get drunk at a party and who I hired as a helping hand at Elle's Bakery. So in retrospect, I was essentially paying her to be my friend.

After another three minutes of finding nothing, I settled on my go-to, Gilmore Girls. By now I could probably recite the whole series. Pitiful, I know.

Letting the episode play I walked to my fridge and grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on. To no surprise that had been a plate of the cookies, I had made.

One thing I've learned while owning a bakery was not everything was about taste. Appearance had also been a benefactor. When cake pops or cookies we're made into shapes of cute animals and had chocolate designs they had always sold better. So with cookies, I deemed not up to standard I took them home or gave them to Rosa, my helping hand. If there had been too many I'd give to the homeless shelter with a couple of my most popular muffins.

Eyeing the cookies I ate one then moved to eat another, I knew as soon as I ate them guilt would follow.

I wasn't overweight but my Doctor noted that I had high blood pressure and I could easily find myself obese in years to come if I continued to eat the way I did. Now every day after getting home from the bakery I invested an hour of my time doing at-home workouts. I had even bought myself five pounds weights to use which usually stayed in the same place gathering dust since I stuck to workouts on YouTube that had no need for equipment.