Page 15 of The Coffee Bar on Camellia Court

Mrs. Becker was shaking her head. "Alex never went anywhere, Juno. Not the military. Not college. In fact, from what I know, it's only on a rare occasion that he leaves Autumn Lake."

Her words hit Juno like a punch to the gut. She pressed both hands to her stomach. "But he had so many plans," she managed to get out.

"Plans that were sidelined when Jason died," Mrs. Becker said. Then she sighed deeply and added, "It was Alex who found him."

Juno brought her hands up to cover her mouth.No, no, no.

"Alex... changed after that," Mrs. Becker continued. "Dropped out of community college. Started drinking. Lost a job or two. For a while, we were all worried he might follow his brother's path."

"I had no idea," Juno whispered. All these years, she'd assumed his playboy reputation, his refusal to commit, was simply who he was. A choice. Not a shield against something so devastating.

"That truck out there? You may already know this, but it was Jason's." Mrs. Becker gestured at The Beast. "Alex kept it running all these years. It's why he's never replaced it, despite having the means to do so now."

Juno swallowed against the lump that had formed in her throat. And she'd had the audacity to think he'd kept it because of her.

"What happened?" Juno whispered, her eyes moving back to Alex where he was still down on his knees beside the tire. Then she reached out and squeezed Mrs. Becker's hand. "Actually, maybe you shouldn't. Not right now. I—I don't think I can bear it right now, and when Alex is done with your tire, he's coming in for coffee, and I don't want—I have customers—I need to…." Her voice trickled out. It was already too much for her to process and she didn't even know the half of it.

"Of course, Juno. Of course. I'm sorry. I chose a dreadful time to discuss this." Mrs. Becker straightened in her chair, then reached into her purse for a notepad and pencil. She flipped open the pad and scribbled something on it, then tore out the page and slid it across the table to Juno. "This is my phone number. You call me whenever you'd like." Her brow furrowed in concern, she watched Juno, as with shaking hands, she folded the slip of paper and tucked it into one of the pockets on her apron. "I don't know why the Lord moved me to speak to you today. It doesn't seem right, now that I think on it, not with that young man here. But like I said earlier, you two have been on my heart and mind almost around the clock the last week or longer. Both of you." The older woman sighed, then turned her gaze to Alex, who was now up and carefully rolling the flat tire toward the back of the car. "I guess I just thought, since you were both here, that God had set this appointment for us."

Juno closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. How selfish could she be?Shecouldn't bear it? None of it had happened to her. Alex had borne it all these years, had carried the unfathomable grief of losing his big brother, the trauma of being the one to find him…. "Oh, Alex," she whispered.

Outside, Alex had managed to remove the flat tire and was maneuvering the spare into position. She should go out and offer to help him again. How was he going to lift the flat tire into the trunk on his own? There was nothing wrong with his arms, but the actions he was doing had to be pulling terribly against the wounds on his back.

Turning back to Mrs. Becker, she asked, "Why are you telling me all of this?" It wasn't an impertinent question. She just didn't quite know what she was supposed to do with everything she'd just learned.

Mrs. Becker toyed with the handle of her cup. "Because I've known you both since you were teenagers. And I've watched you circle each other for eight years since you returned, both too stubborn or too scared to bridge whatever gap opened between you."

"We were kids," Juno said reflexively. "What happened back then doesn't matter anymore."

"Doesn't it?" Mrs. Becker's eyes were kind but knowing. "Juno, you sat in my class and heard me say a hundred times that the past may not determine our future, but it certainly informs it. I'm not saying you owe Alex anything. I'm just suggesting that perhaps there's more to his story than you've allowed yourself to hear. Not to drive the point home, but you certainly missed a key element where Jason is concerned. I can't help but wonder if the last decade and a half might have played out differently if you'd know about him all this time."

Juno thought of the way Alex had looked at her in the urgent care waiting room.We were friends once, weren't we? I'd like to think we could be again.And she'd been so close to saying yes before he'd called that woman "babe" and confirmed every suspicion she'd harbored.

"Of course it would have," she acknowledged. For one thing, she wouldn't have been so condescending toward him at every opportunity. She wouldn't have judged him so harshly all these years. She might even have been kind to him, to have offered him grace for his behavior, not scorn and disdain. "But I didn't know. No one even bothered to tell me about Jason." Even as the words came out, she could hear how defensive she sounded.

"Did you bother to ask?" Mrs. Becker wasn't chastising her. The look in the older woman's eyes was purely altruistic. "I can't quite grasp why you no longer want to care about Alex, Juno. May I ask what happened between you? Did he do something… did he hurt you?"

Juno shook her head emphatically. "No, Mrs. Becker. At least, not in the way you might be thinking. Alex was the same gentle giant that he is now. He never would have done anything like that."

Mrs. Becker leaned forward, resting one forearm on the table. "But he did hurt you." It was a statement, not a question.

Juno met her teacher's eyes, imploring the woman to understand, and said, "I didn't leave, you know. I didn't abandon him or my friends or this town. My father took us away. After promising it would be different, that we would put down roots here, that we would stay and make Autumn Lake home. In the middle of the night, he packed us up and took us away."

"Oh, honey." Now it was Mrs. Becker's turn to press a hand to her mouth. "I didn't know." After a moment, she asked, "Is it possible that Alex doesn't know, either?"

"Oh, he knows. I wrote to him," Juno continued quietly, feeling somewhat exonerated at her teacher's expression. "When my dad took us away. I wrote to Alex, told him everything about why I had to go. I asked him..." She trailed off, the old pain rising unexpectedly. She shook her head and changed her mind about sharing more. "He never answered. Never even bothered to break up with me. Just… nothing."

Mrs. Becker frowned. "That doesn't sound like Alex."

"Except that it does, if you think about it, Mrs. Becker. He doesn't do conflict. He doesn't push against the grain. It's easier to just go with the flow, right?" Juno pressed her palms flat to the table, then slid her chair back and rose. Out the window she could see Thad just rounding the corner, which meant that Dixie May wouldn't be far behind him coming from the other direction on her way home from her job across the lake. "Look, maybe he had his reasons, and maybe there were good ones. We all do. But that was a long time ago."

"Indeed it was." Mrs. Becker's gaze was thoughtful. "Though I find it curious that neither of you has managed to move on, despite the years between then and now."

"I don't know about that," Juno countered. "Maybe we have moved on, just not in the same direction."

Mrs. Becker waited quietly, her eyes never leaving Juno's, like she expected her to say more.

Finally, Juno reached across the table and touched the woman's shoulder. "Listen, I so appreciate you telling me about Jason. It does change my perspective, and for that I'm grateful. But it looks like Alex is finishing up, and I've got customers on their way in." She gestured out the window, then asked, "I'm going to go put together Ward and Penny's order for you. Would you like more tea while you wait?"

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