Page 157 of Where Roads Lead

It didn’t mean I didn’t hate whoever made her feel like that.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

I came around to her side and opened the door, walking beside her up the path to my parents’ house, noticing the entire time how decidedly un-Elsie like she approached the door.

“What are your parents like?” She leaned in to whisper as my knuckles tapped against the door.

“You’re asking this as if you aren’t about to meet them in three seconds.”

“Just give me something to work with. A few talking points. Anything!”

The door opened, silencing Elsie and revealing my mother’s ecstatic smile.

“Hi, Mom. Happy—”

“Elsie!” She reached forward to pull her in for a hug. “I am so glad Will convinced you to come!”

“Okay, don’t scare her, Mom,” I said, but was relieved to notice that it had the opposite effect.

Whereas before Elsie was all stiff posture and tense shoulders, her body had relaxed once she was out of my mother’s grip.

Elsie returned a greeting, thanking my mother for letting her come, and we were gestured inside to the front room where I watched them converse, a warm feeling pooling in my chest.

It was bizarre watching her stand there in the house I learned to walk in. The place I used to have Nerf wars with Matthew. I’d only known her for a few months, but having her here made me feel like she was glimpsing into a past she hadn’t been a part of, somehow.

And I couldn’t help but think she fit perfectly into the scene, there with my parents and our family pictures on the walls behind her. It was as if she was a puzzle piece we hadn’t known we were missing.

That I hadn’t known I was missing.

But I sure couldn’t live without it now.

“Can I help?” Elsie asked after dinner.

She’d won over my parents within seconds, not that she really had to try. They were ready to love her on account of me, but decided they liked her entirely on their own.

I could tell they really did. She and my dad spent ten minutes laughing about some obscure show I’d always been convinced he was the only one in the world who watched. After that, my mother started divulging family secrets that never should’ve seen the light of day.

First, she revealed a childhood crush I’d had on the Little Mermaid. Then about the time Matthew broke his leg, and I cried. She even brought out the big guns when she told in humiliating detail the story of when I took in a stray cat without telling them and freaked out when it peed on my carpet. I’d let them think I wet the bed instead of coming clean about it all.

Elsie had said she’d set out to embarrass me, but my mother took the win in that area. Big time.

But despite it all, despite how well the evening went, Elsie couldn’t get over her disappointment in not having made any progress with Ava.

Hence, her desperately clutching a dirty dish, pleading with Ava for the privilege to wash it.

“No,” Ava said tightly, pulling it out of Elsie’s grasp. “You’re a guest. You should sit and relax.”

“No, really,” Elsie insisted. “Let me do something.”

“It’s okay,” Ava said. “I have a system. The dishwasher is tricky. It’s really better to just let me handle it.”

“Maybe you can show me,” Elsie said. “So I know for next time.”

“Next time?” Ava asked, voice high-pitched and airy.

“That is, if I’m invited.” Elsie blushed, as if she’d misspoke somehow.