Page 97 of Memories By the Shore
“You did?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Want to go back to my place?” I ask, not entirely convinced she’d come.
Avery downs the glass of wine. “Let’s go.”
Excitement courses through my veins. We’re not done yet. I get more time with her, and I can’t be more relieved about it.
Chapter Thirty
Then
Avery
“So, she was justfinewith it?” Cassie asks with disbelief.
I pull out the rest of the racerback mix-and-match tops from one of the freight boxes. “She seemed to be.”
“That’s interesting.” Her comment is disconnected, as if she didn’t intend for it to be heard.
“What do you mean?”
Cassie’s hand flies up to her hip while she cocks a brow skyward. “Hear me out.”
Unsure where this is going, I agree now and am curious about what small-town two cents she offers me.
“Okay …” My voice drawls.
“Well, you just came to live with her, and within a few months, you get pregnant and married to a guy you barely know.”
Cassie is the closest thing I have to a friend in this town—besides the guys, so I try to rein in my immediate defensiveness. “I know Jasper very well. And just because things like this happen, doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s fault—especiallyHelen’s.”
“I get it. I’m just saying that she must feel a little sad about it.”
Heat pricks the tips of my ears.Who is she to pass judgment on me?Or have an opinion about my life, for that matter?
“Why would it make her sad? What about being in love would be sad?” I challenge with a clipped tone.
Cassie turns back to the plastic hangers, continuing to clip each string of the bikini top in place. “Look, I’m not trying to offend you. I’m just stating the obvious.”
“And that is?”
“Come on, Avery, I haven’t known you that long, but what I have known about you is that you are intelligent, independent, and have dreams of your own. That must be hard for your aunt to see your future disappear.” Her words slice through me even though her tone is soft.
She is right. I know it, and I feel it. Sure, this isn’t the life I envisioned, and it’s true. I constantly worry about getting caught up in a fantasy that isn’t reality. But my half-friendly coworker is not someone I can open up to about my anxiety and fears of the unknown. Jasper loves me. I can feel it. I need to trust it.
I toss the ball of empty bags into the trash. “My future isn’t disappearing. It’s just changed a little.”
“I get it. You’re young and in love, but does anyone find their soulmate at eighteen anyway?” she asks more like an assumption than an honest question.
I haven’t dated a whole lot. None of the guys I knew in high school ever interested me—or me in them. Most thought I was the reclusive rich girl who wore too much black and wasn’t allowed to leave the compound that I called home.
After my parents died, their attorney asked me what I wanted to do with the house. Only two words came to mind.Sell it.I was ready to say goodbye to the lonely prison I called home for most of my life.
“With all due respect, Cassie, it’s none of your business,” I reply over my shoulder as I leave the backroom.
I get back onto the floor and catch sight of the time—close to four pm.
