“Oh yeah?” she whispers, taking the mug from me and taking a slow sip. I watch her shoulders relax and feel my own mimic the movement.
“Yeah,” I say, surprised at how easily the words come. “She was brilliant. We went to grad school together.”
Lola raises an eyebrow. “Was she studying medicine too?”
“No,” I admit, clearing my throat. “I double majored in biology and computer science during undergrad. I excelled in my technology classes and found them super interesting. But my dad was a doctor, and I wanted to make him proud, so I took biology and pre-med courses, too, to follow in his footsteps. Tragically, my parents died while driving home from my college graduation. I had applied to both medical and technology graduate programs and… well, I had to make a choice.”
I feel weird, standing in the middle of the kitchen talking to her like this, so I come to the nook and sit down with her, holding my own mug of tea in both hands.
“It was a tough decision. I couldn’t see myself being a doctor, really, even though my dad would have loved it. But in a way, I felt obligated to try. After the funeral, Belle, my sister pulled me aside, said that our parents would have been proud of me no matter what I did after college.”
Now that I’ve started talking, it’s like I can’t stop, and Lola is looking at me with wide, tear-rimmed eyes, like she wants nothing more than for me to go on, so I do.
“So, I went to the computer science program at MIT. I met her the first day there, but we didn’t hit it off. It wasn’t until after I met Elliot that she seemed interested in me.”
Lola mouthsElliotto herself, a curious look on her face, and I know that I can’t put it off any longer, so I sigh and say, “I’m— uh— if you recognize the name Henry Travis, then this might mean something to you.”
“I do,” she says softly, looking down at her tea. “You disappeared.”
I nod. “Yeah. Well, when your fiancée cheats on you with your best friend, and they both try to frame you for the fraud and embezzlementthey’dbeen committing for the past two years — while sleeping together — it’s just easier to hide in the mountains.”
Lola’s mouth has dropped open. “They framed you?”
“Tried to,” I say, feeling hints of that old rage rising up inside me. “Yeah, they did. Planted all sorts of stuff on my computer, trashed my public image. The thing is, the financial implications of the fraud didn’t just impact the higher-ups. Stocks plummeted, and the whole market took a hit from the feeling of uncertainty. People lost their jobs. Good people.”
Lola nods, then shakes her head. “I remember seeing some stuff about it. I never— I mean, it’s not the sort of thing I normally care about. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I laugh, scrub my hand through my hair. “It’s good to know there are some people who don’t care that much.”
“Idocare, though,” she says, standing up and coming over to me, her eyes serious. “I’m glad you told me, Ro— Do you still want me to call you Rowan?”
At first, when I insisted that people start calling me by my middle name, it felt weird. My sister — during the brief window of time I stayed with her — hated it.
But now, hearing it from Lola’s lips, it feels right, so I nod back.
“You know,” she says slowly, looking at me carefully. “I don’t think you should hide forever, Rowan.”
My chest tightens. Of course, I’ve thought about the things I miss. I love being up here at the cabin and would never go back to living in some concrete, high-rise condo, but there are aspects of my old life that I long for.
It would be nice to see my sister. To sit in a movie theater with a bucket of popcorn in my lap. To walk through a farmers’ market and pick out my own fresh fruits and vegetables, rather than getting them only once a month from Pete.
Lola stares down at me like she wants to continue what we were doing in the hallway earlier.
“My last relationship ended as badly as it could have, I think,” I mutter, looking up at Lola, this storm of a woman who’s blown into my home and turned my life into something interestingagain. Who has made me even consider the idea of venturing outside the fence around this property.
“Yeah?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow, grinning at me like she has something planned. “Well, do you want to get that taste out of your mouth?”
CHAPTER 15
LOLA
I’m not usually this kind of girl.
And bythis kind of girl, I don’t mean promiscuous. I don’t follow any sort of strict rule about a specific number of dates before sleeping together. I’ve had one-night stands. Maisie has walked in on me and a guy, rolled her eyes, and told me the coffee was ready.
What I mean bythis kind of girlis theboldkind. The kind that says something like “get that taste out of your mouth” to a guy without cringing. Normally, I’m not good at thinking of anything clever until days and days later in the shower, when the right comeback, insult, or string of words finally appears in my brain.
Normally, I let guys flirt with me, let them buy me a drink, ask me if I want to come back to their place, which I almost always counter withwhy don’t we go to mine instead? I don’t take the lead in flirting because when I take the lead, I end up lost in the woods. Tumbling onto a stranger’s porch, walking up to a bear, nearly lighting myself on fire trying to make a fried egg for the guy who just left me standing in the hallway, missing the ghost of him.
