Myra
If I thought the Friday rush was intense, Saturday afternoon was a tidal wave of misplaced guilt and sugar-coated penance. By the time we returned from the Town Hall, the line didn't just wrap around the corner—it had become a stationary parade of the very people who had spent the last decade making sure I felt like an outsider in my own skin.
As soon as I stepped behind the counter, the atmosphere in the bakery became stifling. Usually, the "Main Street Crowd" treated me with a distant, cool politeness that bordered on clinical dismissal. Now, their eyes were wide, tracking my every move with a mixture of reverence and visible shame. It was the "Apology Rush." People who hadn't spoken to me since the twelfth grade were suddenly desperate for a dozen cupcakes and a chance to linger
