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She shook her head. “No, there’s no point since I might not be here for that long.” She seemed really convinced that she was going to leave Castleton.
“Where would you go, if you left in the fall?” I asked.
“Not sure. Probably go wherever someone needed a manager slash wedding coordinator,” she said.
“You don’t feel drawn to any particular place?”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Not really. Is that weird?”
“I mean, not everyone is attached to a place. I wasn’t attached to my hometown either.” If I never had to go back there again, I would be happy.
“Aren’t your parents from here?” she asked.
“My mom is. She’s Martha’s sister. She moved to another part of the state to be a teacher and then she met my dad, and then they had me.”
I didn’t like talking about my parents that much.
“Only child?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But it feels like Linley is closer than a cousin. More like a sister.”
She nodded.
“I always wished I was an only child,” she said.
“No, you don’t. Trust me. It’s extremely lonely.” Especially when you didn’t get along with your parents and lived out in the middle of nowhere Maine. That was probably why I loved books so much. The characters had been my friends.
“You can be surrounded by people and be the loneliest person in the world. Trust me, I know,” she said.
This conversation had taken a dark turn, and I didn’t like it.
“Well, you’re not alone now, are you?” I said with a smile.
“No, I’m not,” she said.
* * *
Alivia cleaned her plate and asked for seconds, so I dished up more for both of us until there weren’t even going to be leftovers.
That was great. I kind of hated leftovers. I didn’t like eating the same thing for more than a day. My taste buds were weird like that. Donuts were the exception. I could eat those all day every day for the rest of my life.
“I’ve got some ice cream in the freezer if you like chocolate chip cookie dough,” I said.
“That sounds perfect.”
I also found some whipped topping, so I made us both bowls and we finished the cooking show on the couch.
“This has been a really nice day,” Alivia said, setting her empty bowl down on the coffee table. “I can’t remember the last time I just hung out with a group of people.”
“Well, you should do it more often. You work too much. And I can say that because I’m the same way.” I’d gotten a lot better when Martha and Linley had had a sort of intervention. I’d been burning the candle at both ends, and I’d almost driven myself into the ground when I’d first started. I was adult enough to admit that I’d been using work to deal with the grief of my breakup. Sometimes I still did that, but I had Linley and Martha to try and pull me back.
“You could always rent a cabin or cottage or something for a few weeks, just to get out of the inn. Have a change of scenery.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, but she wasn’t enthusiastic. The walls had gone up between us again.
I kept trying anyway. “You should talk to Natalie. Her family owns a couple of cabins they rent out. It’s nothing fancy, but it would be a good break.”
I could picture Alivia sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee steaming in the air as she looked out over the serene lake.
