Confessions from the Quilting Circle, Maisey Yates [animal farm read TXT] 📗

“And I am listening. And I’m sorry. About the awkwardness.”

“You don’t sound particularly sorry.”

“Hey. I live in the town we grew up in. I’ve run the gauntlet of high school ex-boyfriends routinely for quite some time. So I guess maybe I don’t understand the magnitude of it.”

Hannah stared at her sister balefully. “I literally have not seen him since I broke up with him.”

At this point it wasn’t about if it was awkward—because she’d decided it wouldn’t be—it was about forcing her sister to admit that it could be. Because Avery always did that thing. Where she acted like everything was just fine, completely manageable and lalala.

And maybe Hannah had just tried to do the same, but it was her situation so she was entitled to her pretense.

“Okay,” Avery relented. “Probably awkward.”

“You still don’t sound convinced.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“I get it,” Lark said. “You don’t feel awkward about things that you did nineteen years ago?”

Avery frowned. “I don’t know. Not particularly.”

The response was classic Avery.

She just wasn’t the kind of person who second-guessed. Which could make her sort of obnoxious sometimes.

“Well, were you in love with any of your high school boyfriends?” Lark asked Avery.

“I don’t know. I guess I must’ve felt like I was at one point,” she said.

“I mean, I should be over it,” Hannah said, trying to sound sage. “It’s just that I’m not.”

The words fell flat in the air, and her lungs felt flat right along with them. She didn’t want to admit that to herself, let alone her sisters. But now she’d said it.

“Did he hurt you that badly?” Lark asked.

She sighed. She didn’t know how she’d managed to get into this conversation but she was in it now. The only way was through. “No. I hurt him that badly. And that... That really was terrible. The worst thing. Awful.”

It was. And she bet Avery had no idea how that felt. She could be sanguine about her nice high school relationships. Hannah’s hadn’t been nice.

“I don’t think I’ve ever broken anyone’s heart,” Lark said.

“Well, I haven’t since. I don’t recommend it as an experience. Anyway. Things are fine,” she said. “Now that we’ve established I have a right to have a feeling.”

“You’re just usually very pragmatic,” Avery said.

“I’m being pragmatic,” Hannah said. “I hired the man.”

“Do you still think he’s hot?” Lark asked.

It was Lark’s turn to receive her most evil glare. “That doesn’t have anything to do with anything.”

“So you do,” Lark said, her tone obnoxiously knowing and not wrong, sadly.

She gritted her teeth and refused to show her sister that she’d irritated her.

“There are worse things,” Avery said, “than enjoying the look of the man you hired to work on your house.”

“Sure,” Hannah said, glaring at her sister. “Maybe I’ll hire one of your exes too.”

“What does the yard look like?” Avery asked, abruptly changing the subject, and Hannah had to wonder if her sister was being kind to her, or not wanting the conversation to rebound.

And without waiting for anyone to respond, Avery charged out of the kitchen and into the little add-on sitting room. Hannah followed after her, taking in the layout of the room. The purple velvet couch and the bright rug. Definitely furniture her grandmother had had brought in. She hadn’t spent very much time sitting in the house since coming back.

“I wonder what Gram was planning on doing with this place,” she said.

“I don’t know. I never got the impression she wanted to live here again, did you?” Avery asked.

“Not really. I suspect there were memories she didn’t necessarily want.”

“That’s what I always thought.”

Avery pushed through the double French doors, and out onto the deck. There were some chairs, with no cushions on them, but the green lawn was looking nice if a bit overgrown. At the edge of the lawn was a trellis with grape vines that grew over the top of it and cascaded down the side. Another fort.

A smile touched Avery’s face, and she made her way down the porch and onto the grass, Lark following after her.

Hannah stood for a moment on the porch and felt another strange pull backward. Like when she’d seen Josh the other day.

Her sisters running around the backyard like they were kids reminded her of being with their grandparents—either here or with their grandmother at The Miner’s House. The only time they’d gotten along. Without friends or violins or Mom likes you best between them.

Avery disappeared beneath the vines, only her feet visible in the gap between the twisting greenery in the ground.

“Did you find any badgers in there?” Lark called.

“No badgers,” she said. “I can confirm no small mammals of any kind.”

“Thank God.”

Hannah relented and walked down the porch steps, stepping lightly on the grass because parts of it were spongey and she didn’t want her boots sinking into the mud. Then she stooped down and went beneath the vines, a strange, tightening sensation in her stomach. It was because they had been talking about Josh. And that brought old memories up, twisting around her heart like grape vines.

Lark entered the canopy behind her. “I used to love playing in here,” she said.

“I lost my virginity in here,” Avery said.

Hannah nearly snapped her neck turning to look at her sister, and saw that Lark had done the same.

“You. You lost your virginity in here?”

Avery shrugged. “Yes.”

“What? When? When you got back from college?”

“No. When I was sixteen. I...okay, so I was thinking about the yard because you brought up my exes. I don’t know that I loved him. But man, Danny Highmore was hot.”

That shocked Hannah down to her core. She’d sort of assumed Avery had waited for her one true love. Like maybe she’d been a vestal virgin when she’d married David.

“No way,” Lark said. “I didn’t know you ever did anything sneaky.”

“Because I’m very, very sneaky,” Avery said, tossing her blond hair, and tragically for her, still looking every inch the suburban mom that she was in her skintight black hoodie and black leggings.

“This really