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“Wow. Mel Walker. It’s been years. And look at you—can’t hardly tell you used to be feral.”
“I was not feral,” I tell him. “This town is fucking feral.”
“No. It was you; you were feral.”
“I wasn’t—you know what, Scott? As lovely as this is, I have a friend waiting on me, so would you just do your fucking job and pour the goddamn shots?”
“Still as pleasant as ever I see,” he says, laughing. He sets two wooden boards in front of me, lines them with shot glasses, and picks up one of the bottles. He pauses before he pours, giving me the side-eye.
“Wait a minute, didn’t I ban you for life?”
I shrug and shake my head. “Not that I recall.”
“Pretty sure I did.”
I could argue that that life ended a long time ago—that the girl he banned, in fact, died that very night, but I don’t. “Are you going to serve me or not?” I ask solemnly.
“Sure. If you apologize.”
“Apologize for what?” I ask. “I wasn’t the first person to start a fight in here, and I’m sure I wasn’t the last.”
“You know what for,” he says. He waits, and when I don’t respond, he prompts, “Well?”
“Fine. I am sorry for…the things I said to you, and for threatening to…beat…up…your wife.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says as he begins to pour. He finishes and pushes the boards in my direction. “And for the record, my wife would have wiped the floor with you.” He pauses, looking me up and down. “Especially now.”
I shoot him a shitty-ass smile and take the drinks. “Merry fucking Christmas, Scott.”
He howls with laughter as I walk away.
I slide one flight over to Lisa, then throw back all three of the shots in front of me.
“Are you okay?” she asks when I’m finished.
“No,” I tell her. “No. I am not okay.”
“Mel...what are you doing here? You didn’t…come back for him, did you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I just…I met someone, Lis. And he’s great. He loves me, he treats me well, he’s a wonderful person…and he wants to marry me.”
“That’s great, Mel. I’m so happy for you.”
“But…I’m scared. Because I don’t love him like I love Ty, and I don’t think he loves me like that either,” I tell her, and tears fall down my cheeks. I wipe them away, and Lisa takes a shot. “He doesn’t know me, Lisa. He doesn’t know anything about my life here; he doesn’t even know my sister’s name. He doesn’t know what happened to me or how I ended up in California. And I don’t know if he’d still love me if he did.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong. If that’s all, then…”
“That’s not all. I miss him, Lisa. I miss him in my bones; to my very core, I miss him. I dream about him. When I’m lonely, I talk to myself and imagine I’m talking to him instead. I thought I was okay but…when things with James got serious, it got worse. It was like…I finally had to face the reality that I was going to have to spend the rest of my life with someone who wasn’t him, and I couldn’t fucking deal with it. And now,” I sob. “Now I come back here, and he’s just…carrying on, making a family.”
“Well, what did you expect, Mel?” she asks. “You left—no, wait—you disappeared…for three years. You stopped talking to him, to all of us, and what did you think was going to happen? That everything, time included, was just going to stop in Lost Hollow and wait for you to come back?”
“I didn’t realize what I was doing—”
“It killed him, Mel. It killed him when you left, and then when his dad died, and still, you were nowhere to be found…I’m going to be honest, I lost a lot of respect for you. And you know what? He’s not the only one you abandoned when you ran away. You left me, too. You hurt me, too.”
“Lisa, I’m so sorry.”
“Can I get you two something to eat?” a waitress asks, stopping in front of the table.
