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And I know it's only to humor me and that she has no intention of even getting out of bed, let alone leaving the house, but her appeasement eases my worry somewhat. Because at least she's trying. And really, that’s all I can ask of her. She was married to my father for thirty years. If I'd lost my husband the way she just has, I wouldn't want to get out of bed either.
“I can see you worrying, but you don't need to.”
I lift a skeptical eyebrow.
“Really, baby,” she assures me. “I'm not the first widow this town has ever seen and I surely won't be the last. Death is coming for us all, at one time or another.”
I don't want to let her get away with glossing over her grief, but she's saved by the sound of the front doorbell chiming.
I don't know what I am expecting to find when I answer it, but it sure as shit isn’t an enormous bouquet of white roses and chrysanthemums suffocating the woman holding it, who happens to be one of my old childhood friends.
“Someone ordered these for you.” Leighton thrusts the flowers into my arms without ceremony and I have to take a few steps back to balance myself from the sheer force of it.
I look down at the cardboard box containing the flowers and theLeighton's Happy Stemssticker on the side. She's a florist now with her very own store, it seems. And it makes my heart warm for the sixteen-year-old girl who used to tell me she was going to be a businesswoman someday.
Setting the flowers down in the entryway, I turn to find her scowling at me with one hand resting on her jutted hip.
“So, the rumours are true,” she says, her tone dripping with impertinence. “The legendary Althea is back in town. What, did you suddenly decide that you're not too good for Tupelo after all?”
“My daddy died.”
Leighton blinks.
“Oh shit.” Like a switch has been flicked, I watch as the attitude drains from her, only to be replaced with concern and a rosy flush of shame. “Shit, Thea. I'm sorry. I didn't know.”
I find that hard to believe since news travels faster than sunlight in this town.
She must see the skepticism on my face, because she says hurriedly, “I was out of town this week, got back this morning.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Didn't read the card?”
“The sender didn't leave one.”
“Really?” I frown. “Then how will I know who to thank?”
She shrugs. “They didn't want you to know, I guess.”
“Will you tell me?”
Confliction sparkles in her honey eyes as she watches me silently.
When she finally seems to have reached a decision, she tuts and says, “Look, Thea, I'm sorry about your daddy. Truly, I am. But no one from this town has heard a thing from you since you left. And I get that you had dreams and shit you wanted to do, but you don't ghost people like that if you care about them, right? So, even though my heart is breaking for you and your mama, I don't owe you anything.”
Hurt flickers across my face for a millisecond before I conceal it with my most refined smile. But I was too slow, because I'm almost certain Leighton saw the truth in my eyes anyway—that her words were a cutting reality check I'm not yet ready to face.
If I thought I could come back home and life would be just as it was before I left, then I was sorely mistaken.
“Yeah, I get it.” Another fake smile. An overly enthusiastic nod of my head. “Don't worry about it. Just pass my gratitude along to whoever the mystery sender is, yeah? The flowers really are beautiful.”
I put my hand on the door and go to close it but pause for a moment. “Oh, and congratulations on your store, Leighton. Really. I remember how much you used to dream about having your own business someday and I'm so happy that it's happened for you.”
Her smile is small but true. And though there's a sad, almost desperate part of me that wants to throw myself at her feet and beg to have her friendship back, I step away and close the door.
Tears are burning my eyes as I rest my head against the wall, taking deep breaths in a useless bid to keep them at bay. It doesn't work. When the first one falls, the rest follow.
But what right do I have to be upset?
I ran from this town without looking back. I didn't say goodbye to anyone, not even the boy who held my heart so safely in the palm of his hand. In six years, I couldn't find it in me to come home even once to see my parents in the place where they raised me. And sure, I saw them when they flew out to LA to visit, but would it really have been so awful for me to return the favor? They always invited me home to stay and I always found an excuse not to.
