Nothing Left To Lose

POV: Ava Bennett

"Ava, you need to turn off your phone and come look at the front door right now," Sarah said, her voice shaking as she pulled me away from the kitchen counter where I was trying to check our daily orders.

I walked out to the main display room, and my stomach dropped when I saw red paint splashed across the front window of my bakery, while three young hockey fans stood across the street laughing and taking pictures with their phones.

"This is the third time this week someone has done this, and the internet reviews are getting worse by the minute," Sarah said, handing me her phone so I could see the endless list of one-star ratings that Noah's fans were posting online.

"I spent every single dollar of my personal savings to open this bakery, and now these strangers are destroying it just because I was standing on that ice," I said, wiping a tear off my cheek while grabbing a bucket and a scrubbing rag from under the counter.

"None of these people have ever stepped foot in our shop, but they keep calling our phone line to leave terrible messages, and our regular customers are staying away because of all the commotion outside," Sarah explained as she helped me unlock the front door to clean the glass.

While we were scrubbing the paint off the glass, a car pulled up to the curb, and two women stepped out carrying a morning paper that showed Vanessa and Noah on the front cover under a massive headline.

"Did you see this article?" one woman called out as she walked past us, pointing at the page while saying, "Vanessa just announced on live television that she and Noah are planning the wedding of the year, so you really need to give up and leave him alone."

"I am not trying to ruin anyone's life; I just want my small business to survive this week," I replied, looking straight at her, but the two women just laughed and kept walking down the street without listening to a word I said.

By the time two o'clock in the afternoon came, the shop was empty, and my phone rang with a call from the bank manager who told me that my loan was officially delinquent because our monthly sales had dropped by eighty percent over the last few days.

"I just need ten minutes to sit down and talk to Noah, because if he tells his fans to stop harassing my shop, maybe I can save my business before it is too late," I told Sarah, grabbing my coat and driving straight toward the downtown hotel where the hockey team was hosting their annual charity gala.

When I arrived at the side entrance of the venue, I saw Vanessa standing near the security desk talking on her phone, so I approached her calmly and said, "Vanessa, I need you to pass a quick message to Noah, because I just need ten minutes of his time to ask him to make a public statement about my bakery."

Vanessa hung up her call, looked me up and down with a cold smile, and said, "Noah does not want to talk to you, Ava, but I will personally make sure he receives your message right away."

Instead of giving Noah my actual words, Vanessa walked straight into the holding room where Noah was fixing his tie in front of a glass mirror, pulled out her phone, and showed him a set of fake screenshots that made it look like I was selling private stories about his life to gossip reporters for money.

"She came to the door just now, trying to pay the staff to let her in so she could leak more photos of us to the media," Vanessa said, looking deeply concerned while handing him the phone screen.

Noah stared down at the fake messages, his jaw tightening with anger, and he grunted, "I cannot believe she is doing this after everything we went through. I will make sure security handles her right now."

"Do you want me to call the guards for you?" Vanessa asked, stepping closer to him while looking up into his face.

"No, I will walk out there and tell them myself," Noah said, pushing open the door and walking out to the main hallway where two large security guards were standing beside me while I tried to explain that I only wanted to speak with him for a few brief minutes about my shop.

"Noah, please just listen to me for one minute. My bakery is closing down because of your fans," I begged as soon as I saw him walking toward us.

"I have nothing to say to you, Ava, so stop coming to my events and trying to sell fake stories to the news reporters," Noah said coldly, turning his back on me and signaling the guards with his hand while adding, "Get her out of this building immediately."

"Noah, wait, that is not true!" I screamed, but the two guards grabbed my arms firmly and dragged me through the doors, right past a crowd of waiting reporters and cheering fans who shouted insult after insult while taking videos of me on their phones.

They tossed me out onto the sidewalk, and the crowd of fans cheered loudly while I picked myself up off the ground, walked back to my car in complete silence, and drove straight back to my bakery only to find a yellow foreclosure notice taped directly onto the front door because the bank had taken full possession of the building while I was gone.

With no money left in my bank account and no shop to return to, I went back to my apartment to pack my clothes into a single black suitcase, handed my apartment keys over to the landlord, and caught a late-night bus straight to the airport.

Noah spent the rest of the evening celebrating with Vanessa and the team owners in the top room of the hotel, completely unaware that Vanessa had deleted my real messages and destroyed the goodbye letter I had left behind, while I sat alone near the back of a quiet late-night plane that was preparing to leave the city far behind me.

As the airplane engine roared and the wheels lifted off the ground into the night sky, I leaned my head against the small window glass, looked down at the fading city lights below, and whispered, "I wish I'd never loved you."