We both stared at each other.
“Are you expecting someone?”I asked.
Vinny shook his head.
“You stay here.”I paced to the door with Tracker on my heels.
When I opened the door, I looked down to see a petite woman wrapped in a stylish pink wool coat standing on the threshold, her mid-length blond hair pulled into a cute ponytail.She thrust a to-go coffee cup at me.
In a saccharine sweet tone she said, “I brought you chai.Didn’t know if you take it with real milk or soy.I made it with real milk.Remember me?”
“Maybe.”Of course I remembered.I’d never forget the girl who wrapped herself around my boyfriend and kissed him like she wanted to devour him.This was the bitch who blew up everything we had and left me standing in the ashes.
“Milly,” she provided.
“Oh, yeah,” I managed in a couldn’t-care-less tone.“You’ve changed since high school.”The Milly I remembered had never been my friend.She belonged with the “in” crowd—the cheerleaders, the girls who dated team captains and walked through the halls like they owned the place.I was the opposite: more at home with the quirky kids who spent Friday nights rolling D&D dice or arguing over anime plots.
I could still hear her voice from years ago, sharp enough to cut.She’d told me my hair looked frizzy and my freckles made me lookcheap.It was the kind of comment that shouldn’t matter, but somehow burrowed in and stayed, resurfacing when I least wanted it to.
“I know we didn’t exactly get along back then.”Milly pressed the cup into my hand.“But I figured you could use a drink.”
Didn’t exactly get along?
The words scraped like sandpaper.She stole Josh from me and detonated my entire world in one reckless moment.Everything had collapsed around me the second she decided she wanted what I had.
I waited for the apology she owed me for kissing Josh in high school, which is why she should’ve stopped by.
She gestured loosely at herself.“I know, I look different.I’m taking online classes to become a paralegal, and during the day I’m working over at the coffee house.”Her expression softened.“I was really sorry to hear about your parents.How are you holding up?”
I tried to figure out if her sympathy was real.“As well as can be expected.”
“Don’t you have to get Vinny to school?”She leaned forward, eyes sweeping the hallway with blatant curiosity.
“We’re working on it.Are you part of a parents’ group here to tell me how to do school things?”I wondered if she was here to warn off me off Josh like all the other women in this crazy place.
“No.”She blushed bright red.“I…uh… Josh and I have been seeing each other.Just started up recently.We’re going out tonight and I wanted to make sure…”
Boom!There it is.
What the hell was wrong with the women in this town?I managed to say in a nonjudgemental tone,“Okay.”
“We didn’t really date in high school or after, but now we have our chance.”
“Are you asking my permission to date him?”I felt like I wanted to throttle him and her at the same time.“Or are you here to warn me away from him?”
“Guess a little of both?It feels weird with you here.I mean, you and he were a thing like…whoa, it’s been over a decade.”Her false shock made me want to roll my eyes.“Are you seeing anyone?”
“I’m here to contend with two deaths in the family.”I wasn’t about to unpack my personal life for someone I hadn’t seen in years, least of all the girl who was here to stake her claim to my ex.
“Right.Sorry for your loss.I’ll let you get going.Just wanted to say hi.”
Hi, my ass.This woman just pissed a circle around Josh.“I appreciate this.”I held up the cup, not that I intended to drink a sip of it.“I’ll try to grab coffee in town at some point while I’m here.”
She waved as she headed back to her gray sedan.I couldn’t believe Josh had changed so much that this ex-prom queen was his type.He once told me he’d never end up with a girl who fit in with the senior congregation at church, and Milly looked like she’d be its star member.Maybe Josh really had changed.Or maybe he’d only said that back then to make me feel better, knowing I never quite fit in at church.I believed in God and loved the sense of community, but somehow I always managed to do something that earned the judgmental glare of the senior ladies.
Milly called out, “I hope you’ll be careful in town.No one brings out the wild crazy more than you.”
“That’s not true.”
