Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“I didn’t think she’d actually send me a bill.”
Paige sat on the corner of my bed, her legs crossed, a pint of Cherry Delight ice cream in her lap. She’d found it in the back of my freezer, and even though I’d warned her that I had no idea how long it’d been in there, she still attempted to saw out a piece of freezer-burned dairy. “It’s a good thing you dropped it and didn’t throw it on her,” Paige said, brow furrowed in concentration. “It’s aggravated assault in Connecticut if you throw a drink on someone.”
I froze. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Don’t tell her that. She’ll change her story of what happened.”
Paige snorted.
All in all, a two-hundred-dollar bill for a pair of shoes—which, admittedly, was cheaper than I thought—that arrived in my mail today wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the money. I was irritated to be paying Caroline for replacements, but it was also a knock to her pride that she even asked for it.
I turned back to my open closet, propping my hands on my hips and staring into the mostly empty depths of it. I was surprised how much I’d gotten cleaned out in the last three days. It wasn’t like I had that much to go through to begin with, though. But to see it so empty, with one filled trash bag of folded clothes on the floor beside it, was an odd sight.
“I can drop it off at Goodwill on my way back home,” Paige said, gesturing at the bag with her spoon. “There’s one right on the way.”
“Thanks.” I walked over to my bed and flopped down on top of it, bouncing Paige. The water stain greeted me as I stared up. “I feel like there’s so much to do still.”
“I’m actually surprised how unfurnished your place is.” Paige successfully pried a sliver of ice cream free, popping it into her mouth. “You don’t even have a dresser. Or a desk. Or a kitchen table. For five years, you ate at your coffee table ?”
“I’m a bare minimum kind of girl.”
“No kidding.” Paige scooted around so that she faced me, still cross-legged. “It’s kind of like fate, the fact that your lease is up right when you get fired. It would’ve sucked if you got fired next month and had to wait a whole ’nother year before your lease was up.”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“Ooh.” Paige popped her lips. “We’re a pessimist now, are we? I guess it makes sense, considering.”
“Not believing in fate doesn’t make me a pessimist.” And then I looked at her. “You believe in fate?”
She made a face, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the question or the old ice cream. “In some situations.”
“You’re allowed to pick and choose what’s fate and what’s not?”
“You take everything so seriously, Lovey. Here. Open.” She offered the spoon out to me, with another sliver of cherry ice cream on top of it. I obeyed, letting her pop the spoonful into my mouth, and realized that she must’ve made that face because of the awful flavor. “Sometimes things are a coincidence. Sometimes things are fate. One has no connection, the other one is predestined .”
“So how do you tell which is which?”
“You just do.”
Her ambiguity seemed like it was cheating. According to her, anything could be fate. “So, getting fired from Alderton-Du Ponte three weeks before my lease is up?”
Paige nodded. “Fate.”
“My mother’s house going up to auction the day before Aaron’s birthday.”
Paige shook her head. “Coincidence.”
She didn’t elaborate on why. I guess I could see the difference—slightly. It did feel like I was destined to leave Alderton-Du Ponte, and it’d been too perfect that it’d been just before I renewed my lease. And my mother’s house going to auction the day before Aaron’s birthday, well… that wasn’t predestined , right?
I thought of more moments. “Grant finding me in the elevator the first night he got to Addison.”
“Coincidence.”
I frowned a little. That had been a coincidence? Of all the people who could’ve been staying in that room, asking for pillows, it’d been Grant— that was a coincidence? “Aaron being the one to find me back in June at one in the morning.”
Paige turned to look at me, thinking. “Coincidence.”
Now I knew she was just making it up as she went. I pushed up to my elbows. “How is that a coincidence ?”
Paige poked me with her spoon. “I thought you didn’t believe in fate.”
I opened my mouth, fumbling for an answer to the snare she trapped me in. Ultimately, I fell back onto the bed. “I didn’t say it was,” I grumbled. “But meeting him felt too… important to be a coincidence.”
Paige laughed, setting her ice cream on the floor before falling onto her back beside me. “In my opinion, meeting him for the first time was a coincidence. But him coming back to Addison… that feels more like fate.”
I still didn’t understand the way Paige qualified things, but ruminated on it, nonetheless. I suppose she could’ve been right—meeting Aaron back in June might’ve been a coincidence. I’d been looking for anyone at that moment. But our paths crossing again… maybe that was something more significant.
Perhaps it hadn’t been fate until he’d become more important to me.
“I’m really sad about him,” I whispered, the words barely audible over the weight pressing me into the mattress. It felt like grief—not just for a person, but for a possibility. “I’m sad it had to end before it really began.”
Paige didn’t speak. She just reached over and laced her fingers with mine, grounding me with quiet comfort.
“I don’t blame him.” I paused after I spoke, waiting for the words to feel like a lie, but they didn’t. “Maybe I should. Maybe I’m supposed to. But how do you blame someone who’s been taught to be terrified of standing alone? Afraid of existing without the approval of his family?” My voice trembled. “I spent five years scared to let go of the dream my mom had for me—and she’s not even alive anymore. So I get it. I get how fear can feel like duty, and that—” Pressure pinpricked behind my eyes. “That makes me really sad.”
It wasn’t just one kind of sad. It was layered, aching sadness—the kind that buried itself deep. I was sad that I’d let myself fall for someone who was never mine to keep. That I’d finally let myself dream, only to watch the whole future vanish like smoke. But I was also sad for him —for the boy who couldn’t see that he was already enough. Who still measured his worth by the weight of a last name that never loved him the way he deserved.
I couldn’t save him, though. Not from the cage he’d been raised in. Not from the shadow of his family’s expectations. Not even from himself.
And maybe the cruelest sadness of all was knowing I’d never get to play beside him again. That the first note we struck together had also been the last. A debut and a finale—no encore, no second verse. Just one breathtaking crescendo, and then silence.
“And he might even be married by now,” I said to Paige, sniffing. “His birthday is on Sunday, so he needs to elope before then. They might’ve done it by now.”
“I can’t imagine Caroline Holland eloping,” Paige muttered. “She seemed like the type to want a huge wedding.”
“She is. If she goes through with it, I’m sure they’ll have a wedding after the fact. Her mother will probably insist on it. The new wedding of the century .”
Paige shifted. “You think she might not go through with it?”
“For Aaron’s sake, I hope—” The words got stuck in my throat, refusing to be spoken aloud. I hope she does . I couldn’t say them, unsure if I truly believed them.
I felt hollow, like something vital had been torn from me—something I hadn’t even realized I had until it disappeared. The thought of Aaron, of never seeing him again, hit me in waves, sharp and unrelenting. Because why would I? I wasn’t going back to Alderton-Du Ponte, and he surely wasn’t coming here. It might’ve been fate that’d brought our paths together again, but it was something worse at work that’d pried us apart.
But even though my days felt empty, and even if I never saw Aaron again, I wouldn’t go back and change it. I’d still go out to sit in front of the firepit all the way back in June. Because if I hadn’t met Aaron, I never would’ve jumped. I never would’ve remembered how it felt to live like my heart was mine again.
Promise me that you won’t look at the cello and resent it , Aaron had said as he’d trembled in my arms. Because you’ll hate me .
But I couldn’t hate Aaron Astor. Even if I had every reason to. Even if he left me with nothing but the echo of a song we never got to finish.
A knock at my door startled me from my thoughts. “Are you expecting anyone?” Paige asked.
At eight o’clock on a Wednesday? “No.”
“Let me get it.” She jumped up, swiping up the ice cream tub. “If it’s Caroline, I’ll shove this abomination down her throat.”
“Don’t poison her to death,” I called, unmoving. “It’d be hard to explain to the authorities.”
Paige’s bare feet padded out of my room, and she called back, “It was just a coincidence .”
I should’ve gotten up to answer the door. It was my apartment, after all. I was just afraid to see who stood on the other side—and who didn’t.
“What kind of place doesn’t have a peephole?” Paige hissed from the living room, trying to be quiet so whoever stood on the other side didn’t hear her. I didn’t tell her that the walls were paper thin, so the person probably heard her, anyway.
The living room was quiet for a moment after Paige opened the door, and I began to grow worried about who actually stood on the other side.
And the last person I expected to see walk into my bedroom doorway was Annalise.
I jerked up, staring at her with shock. “Hey,” I greeted, swinging my legs over the side of my bed. “What are you?—”
She hit me like a freight train, moving at lightning speed that I barely had a chance to move my arms before she wrapped hers around my neck. “Do you know how hard it was to bribe Mr. Roberts into giving me your address?”
“I’m assuming hard,” I said as I moved her hair away from my mouth. “Since it’s illegal.”
“That’s what he said. He wouldn’t budge. I had to resort to staging a whole distraction.” She squeezed me tighter, practically rearranging my insides. “I had Michael pretend to have a medical emergency, and I slipped into the employee wing when Mr. Roberts came rushing out. Went into his office, found his unlocked computer, and pulled up your file.” She pulled back to look at me with teary eyes. “It was very spy-movie like. You’d have been impressed.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her, using the back of my hand to wipe at her cheeks. “Why are you crying?”
“Because!” She fell onto the bed beside me, her grip moving down to my hands. “Why is life being so unfair to you?”
“Fate?”
Paige appeared in the doorway. “Coincidence,” she countered, and moved to where the garbage bag was sitting in front of my closet.
“Let me help?—”
“It’s one bag,” Paige said as she hauled it up into her arms, flashing me a grin.
“Stay, stay,” Annalise insisted, worry creeping into her voice. “You don’t have to leave; I didn’t mean to crash?—”
“You didn’t. The Goodwill near my house closes at nine, so I was going to leave, anyway.” With her armful of my used clothes, she gestured at Annalise. “Don’t let her give you ice cream.”
My jaw dropped. “You insisted!”
Paige blew me an air kiss before ducking out of my bedroom, and a moment later, my front door opened and shut. Annalise didn’t waste a second before turning back to me. “You’ve been dodging my calls. You made me resort to breaking the law.”
I hunched my shoulders a little. “I just needed time to think things through.” Or, more honestly, I needed time to think about what to say to her. “I’m sorry I was being a bad friend.”
To my surprise, Annalise smacked the back of my hand. “Don’t say that,” she said sternly. “You are not a bad friend. I’m the bad friend. I should’ve told you as soon as I thought Caroline was acting differently. The second I realized. I should’ve told you when I found out Grant was coming home, but I trusted her when she said she’d tell you herself.”
I would’ve, too, had the roles been reversed. None of us had any reason to believe Caroline would’ve turned on us. “A lot’s happened,” I started slowly. “A lot that I haven’t told you about. But I don’t feel bad about getting fired. I wouldn’t change any of it.”
“Tell me all of it, then.” Annalise readjusted her grip on my fingers. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
But there was too much. I had no idea where to start amongst it all. With kissing Aaron? Or before that, to all the moments we’d spent together? Should I mention it at all? I didn’t want to make her feel worse, bringing up something neither of us had any control over. “Have her and Aaron… have they gotten?—”
“They have a civil ceremony scheduled for Friday.” Annalise looked away and made a face at the floor. “Apparently, you don’t need witnesses in Connecticut, so they’re going… just them.”
My mind filled in an image for me—the two of them bent over a piece of paper, starting their agreement in the most unromantic way possible. There’d be no love between them, no excitement. Then again, that was just how they wanted it. “Just enough time before his birthday,” I murmured, the words sour on my tongue. My stomach twisted, like it was rejecting the thought.
“Ugh, it feels so wrong, doesn’t it?” She shook her head. “So… sudden. I’d have rather Aaron gone with Fiona than Caroline—that’s why I didn’t recommend her in the beginning. I’d even actually thought?—”
Annalise was quiet for a second too long. Then?—
“Can I be honest?” Annalise’s lips quirked like she was about to give an awkward smile. “I was kind of hoping Aaron would choose you.”
I stilled.
“You two just seemed so… I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Funny . Angry with each other one minute, passing secret looks the next. Yeah, I saw you,” she said when my jaw dropped. “At the fundraiser, at Caroline’s mom’s event. You two would look at each other like you were communicating with your eyes. I was hoping—well. I know. I was being silly.”
“I kissed him,” I confessed, the words slipping out like they’d been waiting their turn all along. “Aaron.”
I’d never seen someone’s eyes go so wide. “ What ?”
So I told her everything. I started all the way back to that night in June, the night before her wedding, where our paths crossed for the first time. I told her about how everything had just spilled out of me, and that when Aaron came back to Addison, my world felt flipped upside down. Everything I’d shoved down resurfaced with each word he spoke.
Once I started telling her about Aaron, it was like I couldn’t stop. Even the small things slipped out, like the way we’d played the piano together, and the way he’d held my hand as we drove back from touring my mother’s dream house. Things that might’ve sounded little to anyone else, but had played a massive role in the journey of falling for Aaron Astor.
I thought I’d be more embarrassed, spilling it all out like a river undammed, but it was more like I was playing a piece I’d never performed before. My words were notes, detailing a story of a girl and a boy falling for each other even though it was never meant to be.
By the end of it, Annalise was crying. Crying . They were silent tears that pooled and fell from her eyes. “Sorry,” she cried as she wiped at her cheeks. “I’m just—I’m— ugh .”
I used my sleeve to wipe at her tears this time.
“Let’s go to the hotel.” Annalise straightened like she was about to stand up. “Let’s go to his hotel room, break down the door, and shake sense into him.”
A laugh burst from me. “I can’t force him to want to marry me, any more than he could’ve forced me to give up my mother’s house. It was a decision I had to make on my own.”
“But he likes you! He’s making a crap decision.”
“But it’s his.” I swallowed past the sudden thickness in my throat. “I think it’ll hit me more later, after all is said and done. But it’s like… it’s like I can’t be angry with what he chose, because he already did so much for me. It’s like you said. Aaron sees things in black and white. And he has to prove he belongs, even when the people he has to prove himself to don’t care either way.”
“He’ll regret it.” Annalise sat in my words, her tears continuing to trickle down her cheeks. She was only quiet for a moment. “I’m going to call his father. Tell him that he sucks.”
“We could prank call them.”
Annalise perked up. “Want to?”
I laughed again, though this time it was strained with my own unshed tears. “You always know what to say to cheer me up, you know that?”
“I’m sorry I left you here, all alone.” Annalise pulled me into a hug, her arms surrounding me. I’d known Annalise was a hugger, but in that moment, I allowed myself to sink into her embrace for what felt like the first time. She was warm, and floral, and safe . “I didn’t realize how much you were struggling.”
“How could you? It’s not like I told you.” I leaned my head more firmly against her shoulder. “I kept so much a secret from you. My mother’s house, the cello. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you earlier.”
“I’ve kept secrets too.” She pulled back a little bit then, excitement flashing in her bright eyes. “Want to hear something that no one else knows? Well, I mean, Michael knows, but no one else other than him.” Annalise laid a hand delicately on her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”
“P-Pregnant?” I gasped, looking down at her stomach. “ Pregnant ? But you’ve been drinking?—”
“I haven’t,” she said with a grin. “Mock-mimosas and water. No one noticed! I thought Caroline would’ve, honestly, but I pulled a fast one on you.” She squeezed my hands. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I was planning to surprise my mother this weekend, before we flew back to California.”
“I’m honored,” I said truthfully, my cheeks aching from how wide I smiled. “And I’m happy for you. You and your little family.”
Even though Annalise and I were never as close as Caroline and I were, there was no doubt that this friendship ran deeper. There was more pure affection behind it, clear in Annalise’s eyes. Caroline wouldn’t have thought to storm Mr. Roberts’s office to illegally acquire my address, all to come here and hug me. Annalise had done it without thinking twice. It made me feel horrible for not giving our friendship more weight through the years, but it also left me hopeful, knowing I still had someone on my side. And I was on hers.
“Come out to California with me,” she said suddenly. “We have an in-law suite—it’d be perfect for you. A perfect place to start over.”
If I were to get away, I don’t know where I’d get away to , I’d said once upon a time.
And I could still hear Aaron’s reply. I hear California’s pretty nice.
The memory caused my chest to tighten. “I don’t?—”
“Caroline wants to stay on the east coast, near the city.” There was something unspoken there. Aaron won’t be in California; he’ll be here with her. “Come with me. Stay with me. Even if it’s just for a month or two—or if it’s for a year or two. Start an adventure with me.”
My pulse quickened at the thought of staying on the east coast, of running into Aaron. One of the condolences I’d had was that once Aaron and Caroline married, they’d go back to California. But if they were staying here… I knew I couldn’t.
I couldn’t help but tease her a little. “Are you just saying that so I can help out with childcare?”
“No!” She gasped, expression earnest. “It is me being selfish, though. I just want you close, Lovey. I want to be with you as you start over. I want to cheer you on, and not just from the sidelines.”
“I want to cheer you on, too,” I told her, and this time, I was the one to pull her into another hug. I patted her back, smiling at the wall. “And lucky for you, I’m great with kids.”
She screeched. “So that’s a yes?”
“Even if it’s just a month or two.”
“Or a year or two.” She squeezed me tighter. “It’s going to be so good, Lovey. Life is going to be so good. Just you wait.”
I let myself feel the optimism in her words, and even though my last week had been one from hell, I found myself smiling. “It’s already getting a lot better.”