Page 24 of Quiver

“I never wanted you to get better at hiding, and it took me a while, but I made my peace because it never really had anything to do with me.”

She finally turned to face her. “I’m glad you know now, but you deserved better.”

“I’ve got it. I have everything I dreamed of and more in Bex.” She smiled again, but this time it looked more reflective. “You deserve better, too, and I don’t think you know that, which is why I’m worried.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“If you believe that, you’re much better at lying to yourself than you are at lying to me.”

She scrubbed her face with her rough hands. “What is even happening?”

“She’s still under your skin. The way she talked to you, the way she talked to me, the way she looked at you … it didn’t … I don’t know how to explain, but there’s something dangerous there.”

She wasn’t wrong. Fletcher felt it, too, stronger than when they’d been young. The power it had over her had only grown as the two of them grew apart, but she couldn’t do anything about it, and she certainly couldn’t say so. Not to sweet, happy, generous Ava. Fletcher had always protected Ava from the darkness inside her, or at least she’d tried, and she’d enjoyed playing the role of protector. She’d relished being seen as steady. “Look, she and I have a past. The whole town knows the stories, but I’m not the same person anymore.”

“You don’t have anything to prove to anyone.”

She wasn’t sure she believed that either, but she gave voice to the things she’d been telling herself all day. “I’m an adult. I’m a professional. I’m good at my job. I can handle a few months of working with a difficult client, and—”

Ava held up a hand. “Wait. A client? You said you weren’t going to train her.”

Fletcher groaned.

Ava’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

“She came over yesterday. We hashed some things out.”

“Did you hash out more than a decade’s worth of hurt in one day?”

“No.” She gritted her teeth. “We worked out a way for us to get back to where we need to be.”

“Where you need to be or where she needs to be?”

“Both.”

“I want to believe you.”

“Then do, or at least trust me to handle my own life, because it’s my fucking life,” she snapped.

Ava took a step back and bit her lower lip.

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re right.” Ava nodded. “I’m just the ex. I shouldn’t butt in.”

“You should. I mean, you can. You’re more than someone I used to date. You’re my, I don’t know, best friend?”

Ava’s expression softened. “I’ll take it, and I guess I should’ve said I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

She sighed, not knowing how to explain to Ava that maybe getting hurt a little bit was the best way to avoid additional pain in the long run. A part of her panicked at the idea of Kylie having to move back to town, but not for the reason Kylie tried to hang her hopes on. Of course, running into her randomly or having to interact with her more regularly would come with its own burn-and-scrape of annoyance, but on a deeper level, any sort of constant presence would serve as a much scarier threat to a central tenet of the worldview she’d built. In order to dive into the life she chose—steady, stable, solitary—she’d laid her entire foundation on the bedrock of Kylie leaving. Kylie walked away. Kylie couldn’t stay because she wasn’t capable. Fletcher had based so much of herself on that irrefutable fact. If Kylie came back to town without coming back to her, it would crack something central to every security mechanism she depended on. The risk was so much greater than the prospect of trading barbs or firing verbal shots at one another for a couple of months to the point where she hadn’t seen much choice at all.

Still, she didn’t want to tell Ava those things. “I appreciate your concern, but honestly, I don’t think Kylie can hurt me anymore.”

“‘Anymore’ as in ‘any longer,’ or as in ‘more than she already has’?”

She shrugged. “Either. I know how this ends, and I’m playing a different role this time. I’m doing it on my terms.”

Ava opened her mouth as if she had more to say, but the sound of another car pulling up cut her short.