Five loaves of bread per cardboard box. Twelve cinnamon buns. Twenty croissants. Each empty box Is ripped at the corners, folded into itself, flattened, and placed delicately into a spare box.

I run my fingers up the cardboard to the corner, rip through the glue, flip the cardboard in the air to find the next corner. Corner, rip, rip, flip. Corner, rip-rip, flip, a cardboard chiropractor, finding the spots and releasing the tension, over, and over.

Rita, the person who worked Walthamstow before me, taught me how to fold and stack the boxes. In the brief period we worked together she told me about the state of her Visa, how it runs out at the end of the year. The only way she could stay in the country is if her bosses on the markets applied for a visa on her behalf, or if she got married. I said, we’ll just have to get married then! I shouldn’t have said that. On my next shift she brought me a vegan homemade, ball. Wrapped in tin foil, made with sultanas and nuts, it had no flour, no butter, took me six hours to eat due to it being horrendous.

Rita texted me later that week asking if I was serious about what I said about getting married. The phone, at that moment, felt very far away from me. Typing the text back made me feel queasy. I said I was joking, but we can talk about it on our next shift. On that shift she was focused on the logistics of our marriage, which seemed to have already been confirmed. In between sales she’d tell me about the photos we’d need to take, no, that’s not gluten free, visits to the embassy, two pounds fifty please sir, thank you.

She looked at me, saw the shock in my eyes and burst into tears. She didn't stop crying for the rest of the shift. She told me it’s not me, it’s her back. Rita works every single shift, six days a week. In the winter months it takes a strain. Static. Cold. She texted me the next day apologising, and for the first time since she started working, took time off. Before she left I got my boss to buy her a card that all of the traders signed, she texted me saying thank you, I replied with something short, followed by a heart and bread emoji.

When I first started in Walthamstow, customers would always ask me where the friendly Indian lady went. “Indonesian” “Rita” “Visa ran out” the reply every time- oh- ah- oh! Followed swiftly by their order. Life goes on. Maybe I should have done it. Maybe I should have married Rita. It would have been a more honest and worthwhile relationship than anything I had pursued in years. It would have been helped someone. It’s become one of the staple thoughts that makes a space for itself. Another path I could’ve taken if I was a different person.

At the same time Rita was nursing her back, I was working shifts with Rachel, who’s fiancé was living in Manchester, who she was going to live with next year. Rachel was five five but that didn’t count the extra half inch of floating off the ground. They’d been together a year and the last time I saw someone that deliriously happy they were engaged to me. It broke my heart seeing her, knowing I was once that happy and had no idea if I’d ever be that happy again. Like Rita she left the job on January.

It’s now December and Rachel is sharing a shift with me, back from Manchester, her feet firmly on the ground. In the moments between customers I see her rallying against the present moment. Trying to find that splinter that took her on this path, that’s made her this person, looped her back a year, in the immediate shock of heartbreak. I want to tell her- I’m sorry. I want to tell her- it’ll be okay. I ask her if she remembers how much an Almond Croissant is.