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He returned her look with a sad smile. “Yeah, I hated it at first, but I ended up having a lot of fun that week. Ashley did a lot to fix up the place.”
“Okay, well.” Esther racked her brain. “What about my idea to throw a Friendsgiving and you and Ashley decided to start a food fight and nearly tore each other’s heads off?”
August avoided eye contact until Uther elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow! Fine. I might have given Ashley my number that night. It was sort of the start of us actually trying to get along and might not have happened if you hadn’t given us one more push. Now, how about some good decisions you’ve made.”
“Ooh!” Uther hopped onto the desk and swung his legs back and forth. “What about that day you decided to go to a board game café to make friends? Anything good come out of putting yourself out there that day?” He poked her shoulder, and she swatted his hand away with a smile.
“Okay, yes.” She nudged Uther’s knee with her shoulder. “But you were also kidnapped because you’re friends with me.”
“Okay, one, I wasn’t. How many times do I need to remind you? You just thought I was. And two”—he spread his arms wide—“I’m fine. I’d even go so far as to say your presence in my life has made it better.”
“See?” said August. “It just needed time to resolve itself. Now, what about that time you agreed to go home with Ashley over Christmas and the two of you finally stopped awkwardly flirting and just made out already? That was good, right?”
At first, Esther’s mind blessed her with a vision of Ashley in her white cable-knit sweater and long, toned legs smiling at Esther, her blue eyes sparkling in the Christmas lights.
This vision shifted, dragging Esther back to the unforgettable look of betrayal on Ashley’s face when she found Esther and August with the witches—and the way that look morphed into the purest of anger. Ashley had trusted her with a literal piece of her, and she’d given it away right in front of her to the people Ashley hated the most.
“She hates me,” Esther said.
“Maybe.” August’s voice was quiet. “You’re not alone there. But I don’t think we’re done yet.” Grabbing the new stool he’d bought, he took a seat closer to the desk. “There’s something thatall these situations have in common. They all get dark before working out for the best in the end. I think we just need to see this through.”
Esther placed a hand on his knee. “Not everything works out in the end.”
“Not for everyone,” August said. “But it does for you.”
“August, that’s?—”
“Esther.” Uther took both her hands. “You still have time to fix this. When you look back at this day, are you going to be satisfied? You have a whole lot to gain and not much to lose.”
August picked up the necklace, and Uther let go of her so August could place it in her hand.
“Remember what you were saying about Taylor?” Uther continued. “You’re both different now. You don’t need to hide anymore. Sometimes, you have to do something scary to make a very mildly different song. I think I lost the metaphor at the end there. But you get what I’m saying.”
Esther nodded. “But what would I say?” The words congested in her mind, tangling until it was impossible to find a start.
“What would Ashley do?” Uther turned to August.
August passed Esther a pen. “Write it down. When you’ve worked it out, go over there.”
“We’ll give you some space.” Uther took August’s hand, leading him out of the room.
Esther set the silver necklace on the desk. Fear knocked at her heart. This letter was an apology. She should have told Ashley the truth about the cure from the start. Now Esther had broken Ashley’s trust. There was no getting around it, and Esther would do whatever it took and wait however long Ashley needed to earn that back.
Ashley had given Esther a piece of herself when she had already given away too much. This was Esther’s chance to give her something back. To give her a second chance at life.
It was scary writing the words, but for the first time in a long time, she was excited to give someone a choice. To not fade into the background and let everything they’d built crumble into nothing.
Esther tore the page out before her nerves bogged her down, grabbed the necklace, and hurried from the room.
“I’m off. Wish me luck,” she shouted to Uther and August as she ran out the door.
“Have fun storming the castle,” shouted Uther from the porch as she jogged down the sidewalk and around the corner.
The streetlights flickered on one by one.
Esther wasn’t sure why she was running except that the moment seemed to require it. She was going to tell Ashley she was so sorry for breaking her trust, and Esther always wanted the best for her, whether that included Esther in her life or not. She was still practicing her lines as she climbed the steps to the vampire house. She’d start with a classic like, “Hi, Ashley,” then wing her way through her highlighted points from there. She knocked on the door and waited.
Hi, Ashley. Hi, Ashley. Hi, Ashley.
