Mac looks at me and I shrug. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t know what our mothers had been concocting between them.” Now I know my mom invited her, I’m not surprised, though. It is certainly something she would do.
“Hold on.” I turn to Marina. “I’ve only just decided I’ll go myself. What if I’d said I wasn’t going?”
Marina just gives me a look like that was never going to be my decision and takes a bite of her biscuit, effectively cutting off her ability to reply.
The rest of the evening passes quickly and I make plans with Marina to come back in a couple of days for us to book our flights. She says she wants to stay for a few weeks, but I don’t know if I want to stay that long. The reunion’s only for one weekend. In any case, I need to talk to Nolan. I need to make sure that any work I can’t do remotely can be covered by him, and also Hartley, the promising young project manager we recruited a few months ago.
Talking to Nolan can wait until I’m at the office tomorrow, there’s someone else I need to talk to first. So as soon as I get home, I take out my phone.
“Hello, honey.” My mom answers on the third ring. I check my watch... it’s just gone ten here, so five in the afternoon for her. I can imagine her getting in from fetching some groceries, putting down the bag and picking up the phone, which used to hang on the wall next to the fridge. The image of our old kitchen springs into my mind. No doubt she has a hands-free set now, telling her it was me who was calling. No doubt everything’s completely different. A wave of nostalgia washes over me and I can only manage a shaky, “Hi mom.”
“Are you alright, Reece?” Her voice switches instantly to concern, and I swallow and take a deep breath.
“I’m fine, Mom, everything’s fine. I’m coming home.”
It has been too long. It’s time to go back, and whatever happens, there are some things I need to lay to rest. I talk to my mom for a while, allowing her excitement to lift me a little. I am looking forward to seeing her again. I accuse her of colluding with Marina behind my back, and she gives me the same laugh Marina did but says she can’t wait to meet her. I know they’regoing to get along famously. I promise to call her as soon as the flights are booked, and then I hang up.
I get undressed and ready for bed, but before I do I go to my dresser and pull open the top drawer, taking out the one thing I still have from when I left all those years ago. When it became faded and tattered from all the times I worried it in my hand during my therapy sessions, I kept it in my drawer. I run my finger over it gently, feeling its soft familiar surface under my skin. I scoff at my own sentimentality and close the drawer, ignoring the part of my mind that questions why I still keep it, not wanting to visit the answer to that, especially not now I’ve decided to go back. If I think about it too hard, I might wimp out and prove to myself I’m the same coward I was back then.
CHAPTER TWO
Holden
I look up at the sound of the door to my yarn store opening.
“Hello, Mrs. Fisher.” I call out a greeting as she makes her way over to me.
“Now, when will you start calling me Theresa?” She smiles broadly, and I bite back the “never” that’s on the tip of my tongue and reply.
“I—I can’t break the salesperson-customer relationship.”
She gives a little chuckle as it’s my stock answer every time she asks, then she drifts off to browse the store.
It’s not Mrs. Fisher’s fault. She’s a kind lady and a regular customer, and she’s been very supportive of my store ever since I opened Yarning for Ewe nearly fifteen years ago. Certainly, without her and her knitting circle’s support, I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it through those first few difficult years. Too bad she had a son who made my last few months of high schoolthe most miserable of my life. Not being overly familiar with her, especially not on first-name terms, helps me keep a small amount of psychological distance between us. The thousands of miles of physical difference between me and Reece helps even more, and I breathed a sigh of relief the day he left town. That I see his mom a couple of times a week is bad enough, but I’m certainly not going to let his behaviour stop my business from thriving. If I banned her or refused to serve her, then I’d have to explain why, and that’s not going to happen since I’m pretty sure she has no idea about any of it. But one thing’s for sure, I’ll never call her Theresa.
“That’s a lovely sweater,” she says once she’s made a circuit of the store. “One of your creations?”
“Thank you, yes, I just finished it a few days ago.” I’ve always knitted, ever since my mom taught me in third grade. I started knitting scarves, then hats, and moved onto sweaters. I love creating different patterns, some of them I’ve started selling. This pattern is geometric flowers. The colors are very bright, yellow and red. I had some yarn which wasn’t selling and it seemed a waste not to use it. Owning a yarn store has some big advantages.
“You must be excited about the reunion,” she says, placing the yarn she’s selected on the counter.
“Yeah,” I reply noncommittally. I don’t want to get into a discussion about how I definitely won’t be going to my high school reunion. Why on earth would I want to be reminded of bad memories?
“I have some news,” she announces proudly. “Reece is coming home for the reunion. I can’t wait to see my boy.”
My body freezes and my blood turns to ice, causing goosebumps to erupt on my skin. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. She keeps chattering but I hardly hear her. I fight the urge to flee to the back room of the store and wait until she’s gone. Instead, I force my leaden limbs to start ringing up her order and packing it into a bag.
“You used to be good friends,” she continues.
“I-I-I w-went to his p-party in fourth g-grade,” I spit out. My stammer always gets worse when my anxiety rises, and right now it’s heading toward an eleven. She’s wrong, though. We got on alright in middle school, and I thought we could have been friends once. I hoped for more, much more, though. But that was before he showed his true nature. That he’s coming back is bad news, very bad news.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you again,” she says breezily as she gathers her bag and exits the store. As soon as she’s gone I let out a deep breath and consider closing up for the day, not feeling like talking to anyone else. But I don’t. I still have a business to run, and Wednesday, for some unfathomable reason, is always one of my busiest days. Sure enough it’s only a few minutes before another customer enters. I spend the next few hours serving and restocking, while a dark weight of dread sits low in my stomach.
“What’s got you looking so glum?” Clara, my best friend asks when she comes in an hour before closing. She’s just finished her shift as a cleaner at the hotel on Main Street. It’s not the most upmarket of places, it could use a refurbishment, but there aren’t many choices for accommodation in this town. She always comes in once she’s done working, mostly to impart any gossip she’s overheard at work. I’m not sure all of the stories she comes back with are true, but they are entertaining. She throws hersmall frame into one of the easy chairs I have in the space behind the counter. They’re comfortable and often where I sit knitting when the store’s quiet. She pushes back her black bangs and looks at me with violet eyes.
“F-f-f-fucking Reece is coming back, for the f-f-fucking reunion.” My voice gets squeaky and I wheeze a little—that’s all I need now, a freaking asthma attack. I try to take a few deep breaths.
“The homophobe guy?” Clara asks, frowning.
