Page 109 of Where Roads Lead

I deliberated for a moment before reaching for the ladder and climbing up after her.

She moved back to give me room, but the area was way more cramped than I remembered it being.

There were still a few remnants from childhood lingering around the dark space, and for a second, I pictured Ava the way she was as a girl, sitting up here, wanting nothing more than to be included in mine and Matthew’s conversations.

“Well,” I said, sitting against the wall. “Now what? We talk about everything that went down between us?”

“Yes!” she said. “Because ever since that day, you’ve closed yourself off, not just from me, but from everyone, and I’m sick of it.”

“You’re flattering yourself if you think it has everything to do with you.” I snorted. “My brother died, Ava. Did you really expect me not to be changed by that?”

“My husband died, too, Will. It doesn’t mean we shut the world out.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t love him like I did.”

She winced, recoiling away from me. The words hung heavy between us in the darkness of our childhood.

I couldn’t help but think Matthew would be ashamed of the type of guy I’d become.

“I’m sorry,” I said, for his sake, because he’d always come to her defense for as long as I could remember, and knew if he were still here, he’d be doing the same thing now. “I know you loved him.”

“I did,” she said. “He was my best friend. You both were. My entire life changed when we lost him. Don’t you know that? And after you stopped talking to me, he was all I had.”

“That’s not true. Everyone in this town loves you. You’re practically the princess of Colbridge, isn’t that what my parents used to say?”

She sniffled, laughing at the old nickname.

“I had people, Will,” she conceded. “But not the ones who mattered most.”

I paused, not knowing how to comfort her anymore. Too much had changed between us.

She took my silence as an invitation to keep talking.

“Listen, Will. On the day of the wedding, I—”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” I told her adamantly. “In fact, I think it’ll be better if we never bring it up at all.”

“But we have to, Will. We’ll never be able to move on from it until we have an honest conversation about that day.”

I shook my head, already trying to stand.

“You never gave me a chance to explain. You wouldn’t even hear me out.”

“And I won’t!” I said, nearly hitting my head on the roof of the treehouse. “It’s in the past. And if you really want things to be okay between us, then you won’t try to force me to have a conversation that I have no interest in having.”

“Will, wait—” she called, but I was already climbing out of the treehouse and away from her.

Away from the anger that the memory of that day brought. And away from Ava, who had caused it all.

“You can tell my parents I went home,” I called over my shoulder before pushing open the side gate and getting the hell away from her and the memory of Matthew that seemed to linger over us both.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Elsie

“Emails, Andrew?” I muttered under my breath, staring at my laptop screen. “Seriously?”

Apparently, my lack of response to his phone calls, texts, and Facebook messages didn’t alert him to the fact that I wasn’t quite in the mood to catch up with my former fiance, just yet.