Page 63 of Where Roads Lead

“I didn’t make anything for dinner.” Mom’s face fell. “I wish I had known you were coming.”

“We’re not staying,” I told her quickly.

“Because I didn’t cook?”

“No, Mom. Not because you didn’t cook. Because we’re here for a minute to pick something up.”

“I’m actually babysitting tonight,” Ava explained. “And I figured I’d stop by and pick up a few of our old games to bring by.”

I’d already told Ava in the car that I doubt a modern six-year-old today would have any interest in the kind of stuff my parents had lying in the basement.

Sure, the Legos might hold up with today’s kids, but pretty much anything besides their tablets or video games were obsolete.

But I knew Ava, and she could never walk into somewhere empty handed. She wanted to feel like she was being useful, somehow.

I guess she and I could relate on that point. The difference was, while she wanted to be useful to people, I had to be. Otherwise, the guilt would eat away at me until helping became less of a kindness and more of an obligation forced upon me by my own mind.

Which is why I was standing here on my parents’ doorstep, instead of sitting on my couch with a Budweiser.

“Babysitting?” Even my mother was shocked. “Who?”

“Tessa’s son.” Ava bit her lip, no doubt frustrated at my mother’s reaction.

I don’t know why she viewed it as some type of moral failing. Not everyone got along with kids. It didn’t make her a bad person.

“Oh, he’s a handful, Ava.” My mother frowned. “Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“Yes,” Ava bit out. “But I have to be there soon. Would you mind if I ran downstairs fast?”

“Of course.” My mother held the door open wider. “You know our house is your house.”

Ava slid past her and down the stairs without another word, leaving me standing on the doorstep staring at Mom.

“Are you going over with her to help?”

“What? No. I’m just giving her a ride.”

“Will.”

“She’s a big girl, she can handle it.”

And if she can’t, then she shouldn’t have volunteered.

“Are you at least going to pick her up at the end of the night?” My mom stared me down the way she used to when I was a kid.

“She’ll be fine, Mom. She’s a five-minute walk from Tessa’s house.”

“But it’ll be dark!” She gasped in horror. “It’s not safe for a woman to walk alone at night.”

“It’s Colbridge.”

“William Hughes, I swear—”

“All set,” Ava said, coming up the stairs with arms filled with Jenga and Monopoly and that horrifying Furby she used to play with.

I fought the urge to shudder when I remembered the demonic noises it used to make while I slept.

“You have fun tonight, honey,” my mom said, an uneasy edge to her voice that I was sure Ava took note of. “And you call if you need anything.”