Page 27 of Where Roads Lead

“A writer! How exciting!” my mother chirped.

“How do you know how long she’s here for?” Ava turned toward me, those lines of displeasure creasing her forehead.

“What?”

“And how do you know she’s here to write? She didn’t mention that to us.”

“She told me,” I said, stabbing a piece of broccoli on my plate.

“When?” Ava pressed. “I don’t remember her mentioning that.”

“Today,” I admitted, irritated beyond all reason that no one ever taught Ava how to mind her own business.

“Today?” my mother and Ava asked in unison, one with considerably more excitement than the other.

“So you’re friendly with the girl, then?” my mother asked, leaning forward as if afraid to miss a single breath of a detail. “That’s wonderful, Will.”

“Where did you see her today?” Ava continued.

If we were alone, I would’ve ignored the question, taking smug satisfaction in Ava’s displeasure over being denied information about my personal life.

As it was, with my mother on the edge of her seat, waiting eagerly for my response, I was trapped.

“I stopped by her house to fix the broken lock on the back door. That’s all.”

“That’s nice,” my mother started, but Ava was louder.

“I just don’t understand how you went from hating her guts to fixing her lock.”

“I don’t hate her guts.”

“It didn’t look that way a few days ago. You practically ran her out of the café.”

“Charming, Will.” My mother frowned again.

“Hang on, kids,” my father said, finally deeming to provide us a word, now that he’d finished eating. “What’s all this fuss about?”

“Well,” my mother said, “I suspect Ava is upset that Will might be jeopardizing her chance at a new friendship. Is that right?”

Ava’s pale face reddened, and I once again had the chance to see how wildly off the money my family was in dissecting her intentions.

“Right,” Ava said anyway. “I could use a new friend.”

I snorted. “You don’t have friends, Ava. You have people you try to control. And I doubt she’s going to be one of them.”

“Will!” My mother gasped. “How could you be so rude to Ava? If Matthew were here, he’d be ashamed of the way you were acting.”

“If Matthew were here, we wouldn’t be having these weekly dinners,” I said, standing from my seat.

“And you’d be off by yourself, living a life of total isolation out there in the cabin of yours.”

“Isolation?” I laughed. “I’m an eight-minute walk from the town square. There is no such thing as isolation in Colbridge.”

“You know what I mean. You’re content to push everyone away, holding us all at arm’s length,” my mother said, emotion pooling in her eyes.

“Give the boy a break.” My father sighed. “Everyone handles grief differently.”

“It’s not grief,” I told them. “I just like being alone. What the hell is wrong with that?”