“Aunt Cathy, would you mind if I speak to my sister alone? It’s time we had a sister-to-sisterchat.”
That wasn’t good. Would Zoey be called in from the kitchen for backup? There had only been two sister-to-sister chats ever called in all our years. The first one was when Mom ran off. The second one was when I got in trouble with my ex-boyfriend and my sisters thought I was running down the self-destructive path after Mom. Now? I was worried because I wasn’t sure what Sadie had planned for this sistervention. She had something, though, or she wouldn’t have used thatterm.
“Fine,” Aunt Cathy said after a long staredown southern-style, with hair flips and chin lifts. “I need to head back to Creekside anyway. Devon has me signed up for something at the Veteran’s center. I’ll call you later,Avery.”
I knew better than to let her leave mad. Last time I let someone leave mad, he didn’t return at all. Of course, that was what people did…leave. Everyone except my sisters. And me. I stayed. I wasn’t my mother. At least I tried not to be likeher.
Aunt Cathy opened her arms to my hug-it-out Dixon-style routine. She might be a West, but she was still blood enough to know the rule of the sisterhood. Never leave on a long trip without a heartfelthug.
“Thanks, Aunt Cathy. It was good to seeyou.”
Sadie took her turn. When they broke their embrace, Cathy left in a blur of indignation with a jingle of the bell over the door. I glanced at Sadie and waited for a good old-fashioned duel of wills. Only, based on her pursed lips, I guessed she was hiding some incognito ammo. Something with shotgun power and sniper precision. I guess that came with the sass portion of herbakery.
“Avery, I’ve let this go a long time because I didn’t want to hurt you, but I can’t let it go any longer. Not if it means you’ll ruin yourlife.”
I saw her load her weapon with the ugly past, and I retreated “Don’t go there, Sadie. There is nothing to talk about.” A sting raced through me, warning me to run from thisconversation.
“You’re staying here because you’re scared to go out there and face the world. It doesn’t take a shrink to know that Mom and Dad leaving was going to mess you up enough, but Dylan’s running out in the middle of the night destroyed you. He was your first love. The kind that leaves a permanent scar. You lost your way, and I’m not going to let you wander around life any longer. If you want to be a social worker, I think you’d be awesome at it. But I know that isn’t what you want. You were the one who always saw beyond this town when you were a kid, but you lost your ambition, hopes, and dreams when life beat you down. If you truly want to be a social worker, fine. Ashton and I will pay out-of-state tuition. Just get out of here. Find your happiness. We both know you haven’t found it here in the last threeyears.”
“You mean I’m just like Mom.” Those six words nearly melted my voice box. “You know that’s what you think. Out of the three of us, I’m most like her. The run-away-and-do-what’s-best-for-metype.”
“You wouldn’t do that.” Sadie lowered her voice and eyed the kitchen. I didn’t have to turn around to know Zoey was trying to decide if she should intervene. That was her role in our messed-up family, the peacekeeper.
“Really? You don’t think so? Well, I would have.” I gripped the cash register, holding tight to the nearest thing that could keep me upright. The pain of the past shot through me before I even allowed the thoughts to enter myhead.
“What are you talking about?” Sadie nudged closer and placed a hand on my shoulder. Another hand touched my other shoulder, and I didn’t have to turn around to know it wasZoey.
I took three stuttered breaths and forced the searing pain down again. It was time to come clean. If Sadie wanted to exhume Dylan back into our lives, I’d go there. With a step away from them both, I rounded the counter and faced them. “The night that Dylan left without a word, we had afight.”
Zoey’s bottom lip protruded with obvioussympathy.
“I know, but not everyone leaves because of an argument,” Sadie tried, but I cut her off with thetruth.
“Not everyone is Ashton, and before you take pity on me, you should know the entiretruth.”
Zoey shook her head. “Sadie shouldn’t have brought the ex-who-shall-be-shot-on-sight up again. Let’s forget aboutit.”
“No. It’s about time you both know what happened. That we fought over leaving Magnolia Corners, leaving you both here without a secondthought.”
“But you didn’t go.” Zoey tried to sooth my emotions, but it was too late. I’d opened the dam of regrets, and it wasn’tclosing.
In a whip, whirling, tidal pool of disgust and self-deprecation, I looked at each of the girls and swallowed the words, but they came back up. “You think Dylan was the one corrupting me, leading me down the wrong path. That’s why you both were happy when he left, but you’re wrong. I’m the one who corruptedhim.”
“What are you talking about?” Sadieasked.
“I’m talking about the fact that the night he disappeared, he tried to save me from myself. I was doing everything wrong. He believed it was because this place brought so much pain for us both. He believed that we needed to leave Magnolia Corners and never return or think about this place again. He left because I refused togo.”
A smidgen of a smile creased theirfaces.
“I had to choose between the both of you and Dylan, and I wanted Dylan. I wanted to run away withhim.”
The hurt in both my sisters’ eyes was more than I could bear, so I studied the magnolia flower in a pot next to theregister.
Zoey whispered, “You didn’t leave,though.”
“I didn’t leave because Dylan left before I could tell him. So now you can see that I’m just like Mom. You were right all along. I am selfish and only care about what I want. Yes, our mother abandoned us. Yes, our father is MIA, and yes, I’m just likethem.”
“I’ve been so wrong,” Sadiemumbled.
