“I never would’ve guessed that about you,” I teased, moving into the kitchen. The floor plan of the apartment was simple. The living room was long and rectangular, opening into the kitchen, which was one step up. On the far side of the kitchen was a small balcony that led down to the alley and back of the restaurant, to exactly where I’d found Roy’s body. In winter, the steps were too treacherous to even consider. Bedrooms were on either end of the apartment, one with an attached bathroom. It was pretty basic, but I was grateful to have a roof over my head at all.
“How long do you plan on staying?” Alice asked, moving to the sliding glass door to monitor the activity in the alley.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to try writing again?”
“I never stopped trying to write. I just ... couldn’t make it work.” I struggled to keep the bite from my voice but wasn’t entirely successful. “I don’t really want to talk about the writing.”
“Fair enough.” Alice had one of those faces that reflected mayhem whether she was thinking evil thoughts or not. To an outside observer, she looked innocent and chaste. I’d known her most of my life, however. I knew better. “You do know that Hunter is down there?”
The question made me scowl, so I buried my head in the freezer searching for ice cubes to hide my reaction. “I’m well aware. He interviewed me. I found the body.”
“I heard.” I turned back with two glasses. Alice pursed her lips and regarded me with wide eyes. “I used to have a huge crush on Hunter when we were kids.”
“How could I have missed it? You swore you were going to curse me when I started dating him.”
“That’s because I loved him and thought you stole him from me.”
“You were twelve.”
“Yes, but an old twelve.”
“He was sixteen,” I pointed out. “No matter how much you loved him, he was never going to love you back without going to jail.”
“Yes, but you’re being rational.” Alice accepted her glass and twisted the cap from the bottle. “Do you have something to mix with this?”
“Diet Coke.”
She made a face. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Or you could go downstairs and use the pop machine in the kitchen,” I reminded her.
She brightened considerably. “That’s a great idea.”
I was relieved for the few minutes she was gone, which gave me a chance to collect myself. I knew coming home would be difficult. I left on a cloud, thinking I’d succeeded where so many others had failed. All anyone who grew up in Shadow Hills wanted was to get away from the town. I thought I had, and yet I hadn’t been happy.
I traveled. I enjoyed it. I always thought about home, though. I always wondered what might have been if I’d opted not to cut ties with my past.
And, yes, I thought about Hunter. When we’d separated after graduation it was with the intention that we would somehow make things work, even if it was over a distance. That’s probably the goal of every high school romance, though. You fall so fast and so hard, and losing the other person you’ve made the center of your world seems unthinkable — until it happens.
It didn’t happen all at once for Hunter and me. I didn’t get an epiphany one day and say, “I need to break up with him.” It was little things over the course of my first year of college. By the end, when we reunited in the summer, I realized we no longer had anything in common. That didn’t mean the love was gone. It was there, and we tried to recapture the magic, but we broke up before sophomore year. It gutted us both. I made one last-ditch effort at the time. I wanted him to accompany me back to college. I didn’t know how I was going to find a place for us to be together. I simply knew I didn’t want to let him go.
He was a realist even then, tearful when he explained why it wouldn’t work. To me, he wasn’t trying. I was bitter ... and angry ... and that was my last summer in Shadow Hills. I refused to return because I didn’t want to accidentally run into him.
Over the years, I realized he was right. We were far too young to make the necessary effort. Both of us were emotionally disabled, but in different ways. I was from a codependent family and, while self-sufficient, I’d never really been on my own. He lived with an alcoholic father and a fearful mother who never once stepped in to protect him. We were doomed from the start. Yet I often thought of him. Perhaps it was because none of the men I dated during my travels ever piqued my interest for the long haul. Ultimately it didn’t matter. All I knew now was that it hurt to look at him.
“So, what’s the plan?” Alice asked when she returned with her soda. “Are you just hanging out here until you write another book that sells?”
She assumed I could write another book that would sell. I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know if I have a plan. Right now, I need to survive.” I sank onto the couch and sipped my whiskey and Diet Coke. It wasn’t exactly the drink of champions, but it would do in a pinch. “As for Hunter, well, I’ll never be sorry we dated.”
“But it’s over, right?”
I was instantly suspicious. “Why do you care?”
She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “Maybe I want to ask him out. I’m an adult. The age difference isn’t a big thing. He might be interested.”
The notion made my stomach churn. “I’d rather you didn’t. Can’t you find someone else to date?”
“Do you still have feelings for him?” She looked smug enough that I couldn’t maintain eye contact.
“Of course not. We were in high school.”
“That doesn’t mean the feelings you shared weren’t real.”
Part of me wanted to believe that. The other part knew it was best to let it go. “So ... what do you want to do?” Changing the subject felt like the best option. “I don’t have the cable hooked up yet. There are some old board games in the closet.”
“Games?” Alice furrowed her brow. “What games?”
“There’s that old Ouija board we used to play with as kids, the one our mothers kept catching us with and insisting was too dangerous for us to use.”
Alice’s expression brightened. “I forgot all about that stupid board. Where did it even come from?”
“I don’t know. Let me get it.” I left her in the living room and rummaged through the hallway closet until I came up with the board and planchette. When I returned to the table, Alice’s eyes were keen as she blew away a layer of dust from the board.
“Man, this thing must’ve been locked in there for years.” She ran her fingertips over the board. “This doesn’t look like the one they sell in stores.”
“It doesn’t,” I agreed, plopping the planchette in the middle of the letters. “I think it’s homemade.”
“I wonder who made it.” Alice leaned closer and studied the letters. “Hey, this thing is carved out of actual wood.”
“I know. It’s good work. I bet it’s worth money if we found the right collector.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to sell it?”
“It’s not mine to sell.”