She hesitated, then crossed the coffee shop toward me.
“You made it!” I said when she reached the counter.
She gave me a shy smile and I realized she had an endearing gap between her two front teeth. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad. Can I get you something before we sit?” I asked. “On me, of course!”
“Um… black coffee?”
“You got it.” I pointed at one of the tables near a window at the back of the shop. “Want to take a seat there? I’ll get the coffee and join you in a sec.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She wasn’t unfriendly, but definitely uncertain, or maybe just shy.
I had only the vaguest of memories of her from high school: a quiet girl who kept her head down, trying to stay under the radar and almost succeeding until the scandal that had pushed her front and center.
I’d been a freshman at the time, sheltered — and protected — by Bram. What had happened to her had horrified me and I’dalways been pissed that she felt forced to leave school when the guys who’d fucked her over had stayed.
The fact that she lived with them now — that they weretogether— kind of blew my mind, but that part was none of my business.
I got her coffee and put an assortment of baked goods on a plate — including one of the double-chocolate chunk cookies from the bakery in Blackwell Hollow — and took it over to her.
“Here you go,” I said. “I’m just going to grab a coffee and I’ll be right back.”
“You good for about a half hour?” I asked Kaylee when I returned to the counter for my latte.
“Totally.” She’d removed the pink from her hair in favor of a shimmery silver that looked amazing on her. “It’s starting to slow down.”
“You’re the best,” I said.
It was true. She’d single-handedly kept things running after my accident, and I’d let her keep the promotion to store manager when I’d returned. For the first time in my adult life, there was someplace else I wanted to be, something else I wanted to be doing.
It was super corny, but I knew now how precious life was — being alive to live it, being able to see it — and I was going to try and do both outside of the coffee shop.
I brought my latte to the table by the window where Lilah sat nibbling on a lemon mini-scone, her gaze on Main Street.
“These are my favorite,” I said, taking one off the plate.
“They’e amazing,” Lilah said. “Do you make them yourself?”
I laughed. “I wish. I get them from a bakery in Blackwell Hollow. Everything they make is to die for.”
“They really are incredible,” she said.
She was so pretty, with a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose like Vigo. On Vigo they looked mischievousand playful but they made Lilah look innocent and I thought again about what happened to her in high school.
I hated that for her.
“Thanks so much for agreeing to meet me,” I said. “I’m sure this is the last thing you want to talk about.”
“I don’t mind actually,” she said. “I still search for news every day, still think about Rain and the other missing girls.”
“I'm ashamed to admit I hadn’t paid much attention to what was happening until pretty recently.”
“It’s so hard,” Lilah said. “Sometimes it’s all we can do just to live our lives.”
“There were flyers on the bulletin board but I didn’t realize until I cleaned it off,” I said. “People are always coming in and putting things up there. I just didn’t notice them before they got covered by all the garage sale notices and church bingo nights.”
