“Oh my god. And you didn’t mention it?”
“I wasn’t planning on having a conversation at all today. Then there was a stray cat in my driveway.”
She stuck out her tongue. “I was worried about you and had a feeling you’d be holing up hiding from everyone!” she said. “And what do you know, I was right. Like I always am. So what happened? Did you talk to her?”
“Drove her to Daniela’s place, because the road was blocked. Her car’s still down there, just pulled off to the side while we get the road cleared.”
She softened, smiling warmly. “That’s sweet,” she said. “What’s she like?”
What had she been like, anyway? Alyssa Taylor, a little all over the place, not very good at shutting up. I wasn’t one for idle chatter and people running their mouths, but it had almost been kind of endearing with her. Pretty privilege, probably. She was cute, blue doe-eyes and long, sleekly styled blonde hair, soft skin and perfect features, with an annoyingly infectious smile.
“She slapped me in the face,” I said, and Cat went wide-eyed.
“She slapped you?”
“That’s what the cut is,” I said, and she clasped her hands over her mouth. “She was wearing a ring.”
“Oh my god, I thought it was from road work. Why did she slap you?”
I laughed, a small weight melting from my chest as I did. “It was a mistake. I surprised her showing up at her car window when she’d just narrowly avoided a crash, and she backhanded me across the face. She apologized.”
“Yeesh. I mean, I guess she was shaken.”
“She’s chatty,” I said, and I fingerspelled the name before I said it. “Alyssa. She’d been living in Boston, and she’s coming to stay with her long-distance friend Daniela, because things went sideways in the city. So I feel like I know what I need to know about her. Don’t need to get involved in the dynamic.”
Cat chewed her lip, picking up her own mug and taking a long sip of her black tea before she set it down and spoke carefully. “Do you think it’s going to be like this forever?”
She always did that—whenever she was about to deliver something cutting, she’d take a while thinking it over, and the playful spark would disappear from her eyes and get replaced with something serious, and then she’d drop it like a bomb. I made a short frustrated noise, pinching my brow, and I took another drink of tea to buy time before I set it down and sat back hard in the couch, kicking one foot up in a figure four, trying to look unbothered, before I gave up. “Wish I knew,” I said. “Maybe I should just give up on this damn place.”
“Jade, er…”
Dammit, I wasn’t letting her watch my lips and I’d stopped signing. I really was out of sense right now. I took a breath,steadying myself before I looked at her head-on again, signing as I spoke. “Don’t know,” I said. “What do you think I should do?”
She sighed, her chest heaving as she dropped her gaze, thinking it over, and she looked me in the eye before she spoke in a slow and steady voice. “You should make things right.”
“Easy to say…”
“Everything is easy for me, Jade.”
I rolled my eyes. Still smiled, though. She was just like that.
“They’re your friends. Your community. What else are you going to do, anyway? Live as a hermit in the woods forever?”
Leave, probably. Big world. Paxton Ridge had been good to me, but it was just one corner of it. I’d been wondering for a bit now if it was really the place for me—I’d set up here because it was easy and convenient, and then the next thing I’d known, it was six years later and I was wondering what I was doing with myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to say that to Cat. Especially right now. She’d be all alone in this town if I left at a time like this…
I tightened my fingers around my cup, feeling the heat of the tea penetrate my fingertips. Maybe Cat had a point, just not in the way she thought. If I had one foot out the door anyway, what was the harm in trying a little bit? Not to fix these connections, but in trying to fix the connections for her. Try to get her a place back in the community, get people to realize it had been Drew who was in the wrong and not her, and then once I’d burned my social capital for her sake, I could make myself scarce.
Cat’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Are you fantasizing about living as a hermit? It’s not as fun as it sounds at first.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
“IknowI am. You can’t go to the bakery café for scones in the morning or anything if you’re a hermit.”
“I guess I’ll go.” I took a sip and set the mug down, the knot in my chest loosening just a little. “I don’t know how much they’ll appreciate seeing me, but I’ll at least show my face.”
“Yeah?” She sat up taller, practically glowing. “Oh, thank god. I know they’ll be happy to see you again. I feel so much better already.”
“Ha. Happy might be a stretch. But for the record, if it turns out they are, I’ll admit I was wrong.”
