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I was driving back,swearing to myself that I would never swipe right on anyone else for as long as I lived, when I saw the Aveline sign welcoming me home. The large sign on the edge of town with the slogan I had come to love,“Meet Me in Aveline.”
I felt my mood instantly lighten and I sighed a breath of relief. I remembered the first time I’d seen that sign. I think that’s what had originally made me curious about the town. Most welcome signs just said,“Welcome to blah blah,”and they weren’t at all actually welcoming. But Aveline, something about that sign could make you feel at home the moment you crossed the border.
My parents and I had lived just outside of Aveline in the suburbs of the state’s most prestigious city. We’d lived in a house that was better described as a mansion, and I’d attended a swanky private school that I’d absolutely hated. I had stumbled upon Aveline when I was seventeen and desperately trying to escape the high society life that I’d never fit in with.
The moment I’d driven into Aveline all those years ago, I’d felt something pulling me further into it. At home, I’d been surrounded by people I had known my whole life, and yet it felt like no one had reallyknownme. Somehow, just passing through downtown in Aveline, I’d felt more connected to a town full of strangers than I ever had in my own home for seventeen years. Come to find out, that connection had been real, and it was the reason I had built a life in Aveline and stayed for twelve years. And it’s why I never planned to leave.
I arrived at my little ranch on the edge of Hickory Creek and pulled my hat over my head before getting out of the car. While I was no stranger to winter, the arrival of the cold weather shocked me every year. Stepping out of the car felt like stepping into an ice box.
As soon as I opened the door, I placed my keys in the bowl and was pushed back abruptly by something cold and wet hitting me in the face.
Gilbert.
“Hey, buddy! I missed you too!” I grabbed the collar of my Irish Wolfhound and pulled him off of me—no easy feat—so I could move around him. I scratched behind his ears and headed to the kitchen as he trailed behind me, stepping on my heels. Suddenly starving, I pulled out a bowl and some cereal from the cabinet, and I told Gilbert about my date.
“It was awful,” I began, pouring the Cocoa Pebbles into the bowl. “He was boring and stuffy, and—oh my God—he kept wiping his mouth.”
Gilbert leaned his head on the counter next to me as I added the milk.
“I know it doesn’t seemthatbad, but trust me, if you were there, you would understand.” We moved to the couch in the living room and I crossed my legs, pushing the cereal down into the milk. The Pebbles needed to soak before eating them, it was a cardinal rule for me, despite it being a sin to others.
I sighed. “I don’t think I’ll ever find anyone, Gilbert.”
His head bobbed up and cocked to the side, ears perked.
“Except you, buddy.” I patted his head and took a bite before I leaned my head back and closed my eyes for just a moment, thinking over my previous statement, and wondering if I would ever find anyone to truly love.
I had been on a succession of bad dates over the past decade, mixed in between a few long-term relationships that had always ended up fizzling out for one reason or another. None of them had ever felt like the kind of love I was waiting for. The hair-raising, stomach-flipping, can’t-eat-or-sleep kind of love. I’d had that once, a long time ago. So long ago that it almost felt as though it hadn’t happened. Like it could have been a dream, something that had happened in a previous life, a made-up story… but it hadn’t been. It had been so real that I could still remember the way he’d smelled and the way his lips had curved up when he was planning something.
There had been a time I’d memorized every freckle on his body. I’d known the depth of the dimple in his chin and the exact shape of the cupid’s bow on the top of his plump and pillowy lips. There had been a time I’d known what he would say before he would say it and what he had been feeling just by the color of his eyes. I’d been with other men, and some I would even go as far as to say I loved, but there had been only one time in my life where I’d felt love so deep that it’d seemed as though I was drowning in it.
There had been a time I’d known everything there was to know about one person. One person who was gone, but never really left me.
THREE
JUNE 2005
LETTIE
“You know,Theo Martin is looking so hot these days.”
My best friend, Avery Campbell, was lying on her stomach, flipping through a Cosmopolitan magazine. Her blonde hair was styled in a blunt cut to her shoulders, and she was still wearing our school’s uniform.
I was sitting at my desk, trying to study for our history final, annoyed at her inability to take a hint.
“Theo Martin is foul,” I replied, swooping my auburn locks to the side of my shoulder.
Avery scoffed, “Ugh, as if! He is a replica of Leonardo DiCaprio in a blazer. So hot.”
“You know,” I started, “if you spent half as much time studying as you do checking out the guys in our class, you would have better grades.” I highlighted a section in my book and went back to my computer.
I didn’t have to look to know Avery rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t even matter. You know I’m a shoo-in at Dartmouth.”
It was the truth. Avery’s parents, along with mine, were Ivy League alumni. Because of that, along with the generous donations they continued to supply the schools, neither one of us would have to work very hard to get into one of them. Avery planned to scoot by on her parents’ coattails but I, well, I didn’t want anything to do with it. I planned to get out of their house with its stuffy walls and suffocating nature and pave my own way.
Avery and I were born best friends because of our parents. We’d even been known to share a crib for nap time on occasions when our mothers would brunch with mimosas and tiny sandwiches, gossiping about the country club’s latest scandals. Even though the two of us had grown up together, I never really felt like we fit together the way best friends should.
Avery sat up and crossed her legs, her knee-high stockings scrunched down. “Rumor has it that Theo is crushing onyou, Violet.”
