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Now, there was a plate of shortbread cookies and homemade hot cocoa with those big, fluffy marshmallows on the table in front of them, and Nora scooted a little closer to Melanie, looking through the pictures.
“Do you remember this?” Nora pointed to a series of photos taken after one of the school plays. “You were so excited for us to be in this together.”
“I do!” Melanie leaned over, peering at them. “You’re always right up front in all of them too. Always in the spotlight, ready to take over the world. We should have always known you’d do exactly that.”
Just like the conversation with Linda, Nora knew it was a comment meant to be uplifting. But she felt her heart sink alittle. Shehadaccomplished so much, but it felt as if everything she’d worked for had begun to fall apart. Her perfect fiancé had deserted her, her job clearly didn’t value her as much as she’d always hoped, and there was nothing really waiting for her when she got back home.
Her apartment would be there, perfectly curated as always, but she didn’t feel the same warmth that she always had before when she thought of going back to it. She didn’t have a lot of close friends, because she’d spent so much time working or with Rob that she had never really had time.
And now, it felt like Boston was a more lonely place than it had been before. Her job had been the center of her universe, but it was clear that she was just a blip to them. Just one person, whose absence was missed but not panicked over.
Rhonda walked in just then, as Nora tried to keep her mood from slipping too far, grinning at her daughter and Melanie. She had a stack of thin hardback books in her hand, and when Nora focused on the bindings, she saw that they were school yearbooks. “Look what I found in the attic,” Rhonda said mischievously, coming to sit on the other side of Nora.
Nora chuckled, eyeing the books. “Photo albums are one thing. High school yearbooks might be taking it a bit too far.”
Rhonda started to reply, but just at that moment Caroline walked in, and it was as if Nora couldfeelthe room cool by a couple of degrees.
Caroline was always busy, never taking time to rest, never sitting down. It made Nora feel like she was doing something wrong whenevershewas relaxing, even in times like these—late in the evening, post-dinner, when she couldn’t imagine what anyone should be doing other than exactly that.
She found it ironic that despite her ‘go-getter’ attitude, it felt like Caroline was far more type-A than Nora herself was. Nora,at least, knew how to sit down with a cup of cocoa and a walk down memory lane.
She’d always dreamed of getting out of Evergreen Hollow, it was true, and even the cozy memories didn’t change that, but she’d also always been a people person. Just because she didn’t want the small hometown life didn’t mean she wasrudeto the people who did, or unfriendly with anyone in town.
She’d always had fun with friends, thrown herself into school events, and joined in on everything that there was to do in Evergreen Hollow. She hadn’t kept herself apart, as if she thought she was better than anyone else. She just hadn’t wanted tostay, and she didn’t know why Caroline seemed to view that as some sort of crime.
Caroline, on the other hand, seemed to think that staying made her a saint. But even with the people she was supposed to care about, she was stern and serious and rigid. Nora thought that was much worse than just wanting a bigger life.
Melanie leaned over Nora, interrupting her thoughts as she grabbed one of the yearbooks from the stack on Rhonda’s lap. “Come sit with us!” she urged, gesturing at Caroline. “You were on the yearbook staff, right? Let’s look at those accomplishments. I bet these are allgreat.”
Caroline chuckled, and for a brief moment, she seemed to warm a bit at the memory. And then, just as quickly, Nora saw her sister’s tension return. “I was,” Caroline said briefly. “But that was a long time ago. There’s not really any point in dwelling on days gone by, now is there? There’s too much to do now.”
She turned on her heel, walking out of the room, and Nora couldn’t help letting out a sigh. The barbs in her sister’s voice were clear as day, and she simply couldn’t understand why. What was the harm in reminiscing a little? It wasn’t as if she harbored any great fondness for Evergreen Hollow, and evenshe was enjoying it. She didn’t know why Caroline wouldn’t like going over memories of a place she was so attached to.
“Have the two of you gotten a chance to talk at all?” Melanie opened the yearbook, flipping to the first page, covered in signatures of varying colors and scrawls. “I know you had a little bit of a falling out, last time you left.” She glanced at Nora cautiously.
“I don’t think she wants to talk.” Nora shrugged, wanting to leave it at that. She didn’t really want to discuss Caroline. Not much about her sister made sense to her, and she was beginning to think that nothing ever would. She didn’t know if she wanted to expend any more energy on it.
Melanie nudged closer, continuing to flip through the yearbook.
“Hah, look at this,” she said, clearly trying to distract Nora from the momentary gloom of Caroline’s entrance and exit. “Remember that week that they had us all come in in different costumes throughout the week? Look at the eighties day. Aren’t we absolutelyridiculous?And look, here’s the superhero day. You were so obsessed with Wonder Woman.”
“And now she’s actually Wonder Woman.” Rhonda chuckled. “The eighties day was so much fun to dress you for.”
“I think you liked coming up with the costumes more than we did, sometimes.” Nora laughed, and Melanie kept flipping through the pages. She turned to a shot of several students standing in front of a new wing of the high school, and Nora gasped.
“Wait.” She put her hand on Melanie’s wrist, stopping her from turning the page again. She narrowed her eyes, looking closer. And then she realized why the handsome man from the event center had looked so familiar.
It was Aiden Masters. Grown up. He was taller and more muscular, and definitely more confident than she rememberedhim, but shedidfinally remember him. They’d gone to high school together. She recalled him being sweet but painfully shy—and then another memory came back to her, as she looked at the page.
They’d had a moment, one day. The only time she could really ever remember talking to him. They’d gotten caught out in a rainstorm, and hidden under some picnic benches. She’d thought she had gotten the feeling that he’d liked her—maybe that he had for some time, and just hadn’t had the nerve to say anything—and she’d almost thought he might ask her out after that. She’d thought he might, at least, seek her out to talk to her again.
But he never really had, and even though she’d thought he was cute and enjoyed that brief conversation, she’d always thought that maybe she’d misread things.
She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t recognized the man at the event center—the man who she’d seen in a number of places around town, actually, she realized now—as Aiden. But to be fair, he’d grown up and changed so much, from a shy, bookish kind of boy to an incredibly rugged and handsome man. He’d been stick-thin back then, but now he was taller and broad-shouldered, someone that she supposed she couldn’t blame herself for having been confused by.
“I ran into him earlier today.” Nora tapped her nail against the photo. “Aiden Masters. He was there that night we were poking around too, wasn’t he? You were talking to him. And he stopped by the coffee shop. I really didn’t put two and two together.” She laughed softly. “He didn’t expect to run into me either, today. He got so freaked out seeing me up on his ladder that he yelled and almost made me fall off.”
“To be fair, no one would expect to see you up on a ladder,” Melanie said wryly.
