Once in a Lifetime(55)

Quiet had been Hannah’s style, but it wasn’t Aubrey’s. Aubrey was volatile. Passionate.

Hannah had never fought. Never.

And Aubrey fought for everything.

“You had a good marriage,” Aubrey said.

She hadn’t worded it as a question, but he knew she was asking. And the truth was, he’d always believed he’d had a great marriage. It’d been serene, calm. He’d liked that.

But now…now he wasn’t sure whether quiet and calm would do it for him. Since that was a path he didn’t want to go down—wondering if he and Hannah would be happy today with the man he’d become—he shrugged off the unsettled feelings the question brought and craned his neck to look at Aubrey. “We were young,” he said simply.

Staring at him, she nodded. “Life sucks.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed, and rose. He searched her face, saw that she’d made peace with whatever she’d set out to do here, which he was glad for. He offered her a hand.

They walked back to the truck in silence.





Chapter 20



Several days later, Aubrey sat at her desk, staring at her open notebook. Number seven on her list was weighing on her mind. She’d worked at the nursery for two weeks in her junior year of high school. The owner had never let her near the plants—he’d claimed to know after one look at someone if he or she had a black thumb, which Aubrey did—so instead, she’d been an all-around grunt, doing whatever had been required: sweeping, answering phones, running errands.

One of the other hired hands had been a special-needs teenager her same age. Dusty Burrows had been big as a horse, so it made sense that he’d been hired as the heavy lifter—bags of cement, manure, trees—whatever’d been needed.

He’d had a crush on Aubrey, which he’d shown by leaving flowers on her car and helping her with chores, all with a sweet smile on his silent face. He’d never spoken to her, not once. He rarely spoke to anyone, only when he had to.

Then one day he stopped smiling at her, stopped helping her, stopped leaving her flowers. He stopped being her friend entirely, and she didn’t know why.

One year later, she’d been cleaning out her car when she’d found a birthday card, lost and forgotten deep between the seats. It’d been from Dusty, confessing his love for her.

She’d been embarrassed, both for him and for herself, and she’d thrown the card away and not dealt with it.

In hindsight, she’d always known that he most likely thought she’d ignored him or, worse, laughed at him.

She hated herself for that.

The bell over the bookstore’s front door rang, and Aubrey prepared a smile. To her surprise, it was Carla. Her sister was in her usual pale blue scrubs, but looking a lot less tired than she had a week ago. “Hey,” Aubrey said.

Carla leaned against the checkout counter, her expression impossible to read.

Already becoming a doctor, Aubrey thought wryly. Carla didn’t fidget, didn’t hedge. She got right to the point. “Do you remember that time you got in trouble at the library?” she asked. “For having sex in the reference section with Anthony, the principal’s son?”

“I remember,” Aubrey said carefully. “Though I’m surprised you do.”

Carla closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and then met Aubrey’s gaze again. “I remember, because it was me.”

Aubrey blinked. “Say what?”

“It was me. I had sex with Anthony in the reference section of the high school library.”

Aubrey stared at her. “One more time.”

Carla’s smile was tight. “Yeah,” she said. “And it gets worse. I knew you got blamed. That you were suspended. I knew you got in big trouble, that Dad jumped all over Mom’s shit about how she’d raised you, and in return you then jumped all over Dad for being mean to Mom. It tore up the very tenuous peace between the four of us. But the only thing I felt at the time was this huge, overwhelming relief that it wasn’t me who got suspended.”

Aubrey was so stunned about the whole confession she could hardly speak. “Why?”

Carla looked pained and embarrassed, both new expressions for her. “I had a crush on him. I thought I loved him.”



“No: I mean why did you let everyone think it was me?”

“Yeah. Well, that’s a lot more complicated.” Carla paused. “I’m not proud of it,” she said quietly. “But the best I’ve got is that I really wanted to be brave and strong and independent—like you.”

“Me,” Aubrey repeated.

“Yes. I wanted to not care what people thought of me,” Carla said. “I wanted to be…” She smiled sadly. “Well, you, Aubrey. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t anything close to you. I could only wish I was.”

Aubrey stared at her. “Seriously?”

“Hand to heaven,” Carla said, and bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I was rude when you tried to apologize to me, and that was guilt. You’re forgiven for that stupid internship thing; of course you’re forgiven.”

Aubrey felt a weight lift. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And thanks for bringing me food and watching out for my plants. You went over and above, and I’m so grateful for you.” She drew in a deep breath. “And now…well, I’m sort of hoping you’d forgive me. For not owning up to my mistake and letting you take the fall.”