Elsie
Chapter Forty-Eight
Iguess I’d been staring at her agape because by the time Ava finished, my mouth felt dry and useless, and at any rate, utterly incapable of forming any response that might do her story justice.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked, folding her arms over herself self-consciously.
“Probably,” I said, processing it all. “I mean, yes. I mean, wow.”
She snorted.
“You probably think I’m a complete idiot, don’t you?” she asked. “Or at the very least, a raging bitch.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t. I just feel sad for you.”
“I lost a few years sulking in that feeling myself,” she said. “And it was a complete and utter waste of time.”
“Did Matthew ever…know?”
“No,” she said quickly. “God, no. No one ever did, except Will and I.”
I nodded, but my question unnerved her. She shifted in her seat, leaning forward as her eyes widened.
“It wasn’t a bad life, what Matthew and I had. I loved him the best I could. I loved him with my whole heart. He really was my best friend.”
“But didn’t you think you deserved the love you dreamed of?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head adamantly. “Love isn’t practical. It doesn’t fit into the life I want for myself. Matthew and I? We would’ve had a good life together. We should’ve had it.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t,” I told her, heartbroken for the life she had given up—one of true love in the way every girl dreamed of. And heartbroken for what Matthew never knew he had been living without.
“After Matthew died,” she continued wearily. “I was so afraid. I thought Will was going to tell his family what happened back at my wedding. I thought I was going to lose everything all at once.”
I let her talk, some part of me knowing that this was the first time she’d been allowed to tell her story to anyone.
“We mended things a little. But that’s only because he knew that’s what his brother would want. We could work together, run the café, go to these family dinners. The only thing he wouldn’t let us do was talk.” She looked away sadly. “Not the way we always used to.”
“If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I ever really got over him. And for a while, I guess I contented myself with the fact that even if he didn’t love me, at least he didn’t love anyone else, either.”
She looked up at me, then, watery brown eyes piercing into mine.
“But then you showed up. And God, Elsie, it was like the first time his eyes had ever been opened.”
My heart lurched. She couldn’t mean that.
“I saw it that first day when I saw the two of you yelling at each other in the street. I hated you for it.” She smiled despite herself. “I still do. Just a little bit though.”
“No, Ava,” I said softly. “He didn’t—we didn’t. Ava, he couldn’t stand me at first. I promise.”
“But don’t you see? He felt something for you right off the bat. Do you know what that was like to see, after the last four years of him being…empty?”
I didn’t. Because I didn’t know what Will had been like before. I only knew him as he was: infuriating and devastating and maddeningly perfect and—
The man I was completely and utterly in love with.
I nearly gasped at the realization.
But it was true.
I was in love with him. Completely and undeniably in love. He had infiltrated his way into my heart in a way I couldn’t shake off.
And what’s more, I didn’t even want to.
“I’m telling you, Elsie. I’ve known Will Hughes my entire life, and I’ve never once seen him in love…until you.”
I stared at her, not daring to speak, not knowing how to even exist with my stomach fluttering the way it was.
“You have the heart of the man we were all pretty sure didn’t have one to give,” she said. “So, the question is, what are you going to do with it?”
“I’m with him, aren’t I?” I said, voice airy and high-pitched.
“But for how long? You always said staying here was temporary, right? I just want you to know that you’ll break his heart if you leave.”
I sucked in a breath, because for so long the future had been this exciting, unpredictable thing, and now, suddenly it was smack in front of me, forcing me to make a decision.
And just now, at twenty-six years old, I realized that dreaming up the life you wanted didn’t bring you any closer to actually getting it.
I wanted Will more than anything.
But I also wanted a life that felt like mine. Like I really belonged to it, and it to me.
Did I have a place in Colbridge without Will? I didn’t have any money, and I certainly couldn’t warrant staying there solely based on however long it worked out between us.
Relationships changed. People grew. Either together or apart. But I wanted a home that felt permanent. And I didn’t want to feel like an outcast in the town, should Will decide he really wasn’t cut out for a relationship after all.
“I guess I have some things to figure out,” I told her.
“From where I sat, it looked like you both already knew the answer.”
“Ava…” I sighed. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
That he didn’t love you the way you wanted him to.
That you loved him the way you wished you loved his brother.
That I somehow got caught up in it and indirectly caused you more pain than I was even aware of.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You’re just the type of girl guys can’t help but loving.”
I laughed. “If only you knew how wrong you were about that.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “You’re perfect. You’re go-with-the-flow and interesting and don’t blow a gasket when someone gets in the way of your stupid routines.”
“At least you have routines.” I laughed. “I get through life on a wing and a prayer.”
“Well, I can help you with that.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Create some structure, or routines, or whatever.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I’ve actually sort of been dying to ever since I met you. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s a project.”
“Well, lucky you, I’m probably the biggest work-in-progress you’ll ever meet.”
“Will doesn’t seem to mind, though. Does he?”
“No. I guess not,” I said. “But there are a lot of people in my life who do.”
She arched a brow, waiting for more, and since she’d been so honest with me, I thought it only fair I returned the favor.
“My fiance left me the night before our wedding,” I told her. “Which was exactly,” I stared at my watch for comic relief, “seven days before I showed up in Colbridge?”
She reeled back as if I’d just told her a black hole had run through Massachusetts, ready to swallow us whole.
“Fiance? Before you got here? But that was just a few months ago, Elsie…”
“September fourteenth would’ve been the big day.” I shrugged.
“So you were dealing with all that when you showed up and I—” she groaned miserably. “God, I was such a bitch to you.”
“No, you weren’t,” I said weakly.
“Yeah, I was,” she deadpanned.
“Yeah, you kind of were.” I laughed. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.” I leaned forward to rest a hand on her knee. “Really, I mean that.”
“I guess that phrase, you never really know what people are going through is truer than I thought. Huh?” She laughed.
“Tell me about it.” I huffed a breath. “Here I thought you were just this perfect woman with the perfect life and the perfect hair—”
“You think my hair is perfect?” she said, pleased at the thought.
“Uh, duh,” I told her. “You look like you just walked out of a L’Oreal commercial.”
“Well, I do follow a seven step routine every night.” She laughed, touching her hair. “But thank you.”
We talked a little bit longer, the ice having been broken thoroughly between us. At least, broken enough to make her comfortable to ask:
“Elsie? Does Will know? About the fiance?”
I pressed my lips together, feeling like I was guilty of something but not sure what.
“No,” I said. “But I’m going to tell him.”
“You should.” She nodded. “Soon.”
Her words hastened the panic that had been growing inside of me, and I couldn’t help but feel that time was already running out.