3
Ava
Outside the bar, I scan the parking lot for a Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Department vehicle that I’m a little too familiar with the backseat of.
When it’s not there, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Between the coyote sightings, rumored animal attacks, and that dog that bit me, I’ve been a little on edge, eyeing the shadows of the surrounding woods. Of course, the reason is none of the above, but a fourth, far more terrible option.
Because of them, my ex has been answering calls to pick up animal carcasses or reassure locals that they have everything under control, and I’ve glimpsed that van with the Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Department seal on the side too many times.
After avoiding his texts, I don’t know how I would do in a face-to-face confrontation. I might give in to the offers to fix my headlights, relinquishing the thimble’s worth of self-respect I have, and beg him to try to make it work with me again.
It might not be him. After a lot of pacing and handwringing indecision, I ended up calling their emergency number to report the animal I hit, and someone else answered.
I’d been doing a really good job of not desperately dialing my ex these past six months, crying into his voicemail to take me back.
I was proud of that. And then, having to call his workplace to report the incident felt like it was inviting him back into my life.
I’m really hoping he hadn’t seen the report with my name on it.
I swear I’m not, like, traumatized from that night I got bit by that wild dog, and seeing it everywhere like it’s back for more.
I’m fine. I’ve pet my boss’s dog since then.
I didn’t even need stitches. The real pain is the rabies shots and how I gotta keep going back to the hospital for the rest of the series.
And it’s gotta be in my hand because that was the possibly infected area.
And, of course, this is why I need to find a job that actually offers insurance. The out-of-pocket ER expense went on my credit card, and I can’t think yet about how I’m going to pay it off. I’m hoping I can pick up some extra shifts at Palmer’s, maybe.
It definitely means I shouldn’t be getting takeout for dinner yet again, but again the hand thing makes cooking suck worse than it already does. And I’ve already got this big expense to pay off, so fuck it, I’ll treat myself a little. What’s another few dollars on top of a couple thousand?
There aren’t a whole lot of places to eat around Mystic Falls. Near my cabin there’s diner food, gas station food, and bar fly food. If I’m willing to drive thirty minutes out, there’s a pancake house.
I never feel like making food. I hate all the little steps; I hate doing the dishes afterward.
After working at the flower farm, hauling bags of mulch here and there, I don’t have the energy for it.
Whenever I think I’m going to get better at it and buy a bag of salad to try to prove it, it ends up going bad before I remember to use it.
Trying to make my own food is really the wasteful expense here, if you think about it.
Besides, it’s just an order of mozzarella sticks.
I duck inside under the aged Thirsty Turtle sign, and Sophie pokes her head out of the back. “Ava! Same as usual?”
“Yeah, extra crispy.”
Sophie’s attention draws to the bandage peeling pack on my hand as I settle into a barstool, “Yeesh, that looks nasty.”
I shrug and try to re-stick the peeling edge to my hand. “Not as bad as it was a week ago.”
“Before or after the wedding job?”
“Literally right after, when I was leaving,” I tell her, and decide to omit the hit-and-run part. I don’t need Sophie carelessly mentioning it to someone else, and then suddenly everyone’s calling me Roadkill Ava or something equally uninspired.
“Ugh, it would happen there,” she says, picking up a rag to wipe the condensation rings off the bar. “I swear the Hayes House is cursed. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks the family’s all vampires or something.”
After finally seeing the place myself, I also think the Hayes House is some kind of super haunted, so I lean in. “Ha. What, like they’re the Cullen’s? Yeah, alright, I’ll add that to my belief system.”
Sophie’s eyes widen, and she looks excited to elaborate.
“Right? It totally makes sense too. My uncle used to work at the brewery, and he said there’s some bottles no one’s allowed to sample or pull for any reason.
And my friend Aubrey said she went into their basement once, and it was like a catacombs.
A catacomb? You know what I mean, like a spooky Gothic tomb.
And like the brewery, and uh, red wine, right?
Like glasses full of blood or whatever.”
I snort. “Not to poke holes in your theory, I thought the brewery just made ale?”
“Look, I’m still gathering evidence on this.”
“Well, I was Team Edward in high school, so I’ll let you know if I come across anything else to support it.”
She grins and disappears back into the storeroom; I glimpse her ripping open a plastic bag of frozen sticks and shaking my mozzarella sticks into the fryer. The oil goes from perfectly placid to roiling in an instant.
It’ll be a few more minutes then.
Waiting for said sticks, I’m staring at my phone, watching Laura’s texts pop up and disappear, the preview of the excuse for why she was running late again.
I sigh. I know how this goes.
She’s covering until her coworker gets there, and it’s only supposed to be another half hour until they show up, and then an hour later she’s finally out, but now she’s too tired to socialize and sends me an endless stream of apologies.
I wish she’d just tell me it’s not happening tonight, instead of keeping me on my toes. If she’s not going to show up, I’d rather spend my evening on my couch, flipping through channels, wearing pajama pants and a sheet mask, instead of waiting at the bar for an hour.
I slouch against the bar, staring at the large-framed mirror on the back wall behind the collection of spirits.
It’s got the same specials that the Thirsty Turtle has always had, written on it in faded marker, but I’m looking around the bar through it.
There’re a few people scattered around different tables, everyone sitting as far away as possible from each other.
That’s just the kind of folk that live around here, really.
At a table not too far behind me, a couple of guys are sitting, maybe a little older than me. There’s not a whole lot of young people in Mystic so naturally my eye draws to them.
“. . . I’m just saying, technically, I have been married for two years,” one guy with a mess of dark brown curls says, holding up some fingers like he’d been counting on them, “Tech-ni-cal-ly . . . twenty-three months and two weeks, but I’m rounding up a little.”
The guy across the little table from him sighs and leans his face into his hand, a curtain of long, silky dark hair falls over his shoulder. I freeze.
It’s that fucking guy again.
I can’t believe it. Mystic Falls isn’t that small. This would be like the third time in a week. I cast a careful glance over my shoulder, and yup, that’s him. I remember him alright. It’s hard not to, the way he immediately scowled when I met him. Both times now, but who’s keeping score?
He looks like he’s been getting a bit more sleep; the dark circles under his eyes have lessened, though they’re not entirely gone. Not that it’s doing his attitude any good, he still looks less than happy to be here.
“It doesn’t work like that. The counter has to reset,” that fucking guy replies, and I would love for more context. I can’t help it. I live for other people’s bullshit. “It’s only been a week.”
“It literally doesn’t. Cumulatively it’s been two years.” The other guy scoffs. Whatever this is about, I’m on his side.
“If you need to rely on a technicality, you’re wrong.”
Curly guy waves a hand dismissively. “Believing is nine tenths of the law and all that.”
“I . . . I don’t even know what to do with that one. You’re just wrong all over. And the thing before that was the most divorced thing I’ve ever heard.”
The other guy pushes back from the table, scrubs his hands over his face. It looks like he’s having some big feelings over there.
“Don’t remind me. It’s starting to scare me how real this is. What if I fuck it up? I don’t want to put too much pressure on the idea of never fucking up because that’s unrealistic, but I also just plain don’t want to fuck it up. I need to be wrong sometimes. I don’t know how else to be.”
“And you don’t think adding two years onto the scoreboard is adding pressure? You’ll be the architect of your own misery.”
The second guy rests his head in his hand, staring at the first, almost in disbelief. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
That fucking guy raises a steely eyebrow. “Then trust that I know what I’m talking about.”
“Should I? Clearly it hasn’t improved things for you.”
His brow pinches for that glare I’m already too familiar with. “What do you mean?”
“You’re still a miserable asshole.”
Them’s fighting words. I try to bite back a snort, or any kind of amusement. Hard agree on the miserable asshole stuff. I watch a muscle tick in his jaw as it tenses. Laura’s gonna be sorry she missed this.
There’s a long stretch of silence that the other guy feels the need to fill, adding a little awkwardly, “Seriously, dude, I worry about you.”
Instead of snapping back, the long-haired guy sighs. “Yeah, I worry about you too. I don’t know why. You keep getting it wrong and it turns out fine anyway.”
“Don’t sound so jealous.”
“Shut up. You’re God’s favorite idiot. It’s all going to work out. You’re going to have a perfect little family for a hundred years.”
The other guy grins like he’s been complimented. Preens, even. “You really think so?”
A line in the miserable asshole’s cheek tenses, and I realize he’s holding back a smile. “Don’t get mushy on me.”
“You started it,” the preening guy says before he repeats with a chuckle, “God’s favorite idiot.”
“Dad’s too.”
The breath stalls in my throat at that soap opera worthy detail. The smiling, friendlier guy’s face falls for the first time this whole conversation. “That wasn’t always a good thing.”
“Yeah, I know.”
A moment of silence drifts by, and I try another direct glance at them. I’m terrified of long-haired guy catching me eavesdropping when the moment feels so charged.
The curly haired guy offers after a bit, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about what happened.”
Miserable asshole looks away at that. I’m not surprised he can’t handle what sounded like a genuine apology. “You don’t need to keep saying that. It’s over, so now I just have to figure out how to move forward.”
“Do you think you would have been happy?”
The guy who seems incapable of a smile knocks back the rest of his drink and scowls. He takes a beat before he answers, “Happier.”
“But not happy.”
I’m watching the both of them as they lapse into silence. I’m so fucking invested, I wish they’d give me actual details.
I chance a peek over my shoulder and the eye contact we make when he spots me creeping on him sends a piercing emotion through my gut as he glares at me for a third time.
This! Fucking! Guy! Would it kill him to relax his forehead? Or are his eyebrows just permanently furrowed? I thought, momentarily, maybe he’d be a little more civil than the first time we’d crossed paths, or the second.
He doesn’t even know me. I don’t deserve a scowl like that every single time we cross paths. I stand still at the bar, leaning on it, not clutching it for some kind of social assurance in the near dead quiet.
I search the doorway to the backroom for any sign of Sophie appearing with my mozzarella sticks so I can just get out of here, to no avail.
His stare bores into me; I can feel it on the back of my head. I glimpse their reflection in the mirror behind the bar, as the guy he’s talking to actually waves a hand in front of his face to get his attention again, he’s so set on glaring at me. Unreal.
“Hey, before I lose you to navel-gazing into the abyss, I just wanna confirm that you’ve forgiven me for everything ever,” his friend says, pausing to take a couple bills out of his wallet, laying them on the table beside the empty bottles.
Miserable Asshole spares him a grain of his attention. “You’re insufferable.”
His friend seems satisfied with that, clapping him on the shoulder. “Yeah, that’s the spirit.”
I bury my attention in my phone, hoping desperately that Laura’s decided to cancel on me earlier than she usually does. She hasn’t yet, and I triple text her asking if she just wants to cancel ahead of time.
I glance at the mirror behind the bar again, and yup, he’s still staring. His friend left, got tired of his shitty attitude, probably.
I’m getting pretty sick of this. I’m sick of feeling like I’m on the run from the things that bother me.
“Sophie, I need another round,” I say when the bartender comes back out front with my little takeout container. When she frowns in confusion, I flick my eyes in the direction of that fucking guy, and she catches my drift.
Sophie looks a little interested and possibly a little skeptical. She opens the fridge under the bar and pulls a couple cold ones out, twisting the tops off. “I think you’ve got the wrong one. The younger brother’s the flirt. I’ve never gotten a kind word out of that one.”
Still, Sophie sets the two long-necked bottles down in front of me, the rustic-styled label reading Aconite Ale.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. I’m more than well acquainted with the drink.
Most local bars and restaurants near Mystic Falls have it.
I don’t dislike the local brewery’s stock, but it’s impossible to get much of anything else around here.
Maybe you can find a gas station with a couple cases of Bud Light or any other cheap beer around here, but there’s nothing good.
“Yeah, well, I find it’s best to bring a treat when I’m about to teach someone to sit the fuck down,” I reply. I glance over my shoulder, seeing him staring resolutely somewhere else.
She snorts, and I grab the two bottles in one hand, my greasy box of sticks in the others, and hop off the barstool.
My fingers are growing cold from the chilled amber bottles as I weave through a couple tables and scattered chairs toward him. I watch him glance up from his mostly finished drink to where I was sitting before.
There’s something about the way his expression narrows, his brow creasing when he sees that I’m not sitting there anymore that makes the peace offering part of this excursion disappear from my brain.
“What is your fucking deal, man?”