Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Later that night, Nora sat by the fireplace, flipping through some old photo albums as Melanie curled up on the other side of the couch. She'd come over for dinner at Rhonda's request, and Rhonda had made one of Nora's favorite meals: roasted chicken stuffed with mushrooms and spinach and lemon, with roasted asparagus and carrots on the side. She'd even made quinoa tossed in balsamic vinegar and the leftover roasting juices for Nora, instead of potatoes.

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 a little. She had accomplished 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 could feel the 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 whenever she was 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 was rude to 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 to stay , 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 all great ."

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 even she 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 absolutely ridiculous? 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 remembered him, but she did finally 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.

"To be fair , I usually have people to do that." Nora tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, glancing back at the photo once more. "What has he been up to since school anyway? I remember he wanted to do something around here. I guess he really did stick to that."

"He went to a trade school in Albany, to study carpentry." Melanie shrugged. "And then he came back here. That's why he was there with Blake at the event center that night—they and some of the other guys have been repairing it since the storm. But Aiden does all that kind of work around town. He takes some other projects too, for places outside of Evergreen Hollow. I think he'd have to, in order to make enough of a profit. It doesn't help that he undercharges pretty much every resident here, I think," Melanie added wryly.

"I just don't understand why he would want to come back here," Nora murmured, her gaze returning to the picture. Her brow furrowed as she studied it, remembering what little she knew of him. He'd been smart. Quiet, but definitely intelligent. He could have done a lot more than come back to Evergreen Hollow and patch up the buildings in his hometown for a pittance.

"I mean…" Melanie let out a small sigh. "A person might come back to their hometown for any number of reasons." Her voice was gentle, but there was a slight pointedness to it as she continued. "I still live here too. And I love it. I don't want to be anywhere else, even if I could make a lot more money running a coffee shop in a bigger city, or do anything else. I know small-town life isn't for everyone, but it is for some of us. And for those who like it, this place feels like… like an oasis. A calm, quiet place away from all of the chaos, where we've made our lives exactly how we want them."

Something about the sincerity in her friend's voice struck Nora. She still didn't understand the feeling, but it was clear that Melanie did, and Aiden must too. She might not understand the particular charm of Evergreen Hollow, but it was clear that they believed in it. It held a clear allure for the people who lived there, and even if Nora thought they were a bit deluded, Melanie was clearly happy. Aiden had seemed happy too.

Maybe she had been a touch too judgmental. Just a little.

Melanie reached for her cup of cocoa, taking a sip as she continued flipping through the yearbook. Nora looked at the photos, her gaze roaming over the pep rally pictures and the cheerleaders with the football team and the parades, the science fairs, and the end-of-year awards. As she did, she thought of all her ambitions, all those years.

She had always been so laser-focused on what she had wanted for herself, on what she was going to achieve in the future. Her life had centered around plotting her escape from Evergreen Hollow, and she hadn't bothered with anything other than fully detaching herself from those roots once she was gone.

She'd kept in touch with Melanie, as best as she had felt she could manage, but no one else. None of the classmates she'd once considered friends, or even those she'd known in passing, like Aiden. They'd vanished from her thoughts once she'd managed to flee Evergreen Hollow, and she hadn't looked back.

She felt a little guilty for not recognizing him. She wondered, as Melanie picked up their junior yearbook, why he hadn't brought it up when they'd met again at the event center. He could have mentioned that they'd gone to school together once he'd realized she didn't recognize him, but he hadn't, and she wasn't sure why. If anything, he'd seemed a little guarded around her. Like he wasn't entirely sure what to say.

"I have an idea," Melanie said suddenly, cutting through Nora's thoughts and startling her a little. Her voice had that bright, enthusiastic ring that Nora knew meant she was excited for something that she'd just thought of. "While you're here, I'm going to show you a different side of Evergreen Hollow—all the things to do that we have fun with." Her eyes sparkled, and there was a determined set to her jaw. "I want to show you there's more going on here than you think."

"That's a fantastic idea!" Rhonda spoke up immediately from Nora's other side, and Nora knew instantly that she was outnumbered. Her mother sounded as thrilled about Melanie's idea as Melanie herself was. "You could go ice skating!"

"There's a weekly cooking class at the event center too. It's themed. I think next week's is French cooking. From that Julia Child cookbook," Melanie added. "Or the shelter always needs people to volunteer to walk the dogs, and there are such gorgeous hiking trails here, even in the winter."

Nora laughed, shaking her head. As hesitant as she was to immerse herself any further in Evergreen Hollow, she had to admit that it did sound like fun.

"Slow down," she said, still chuckling. "I've already committed to helping with the festival, so I'm not going to have too much free time on my hands. I'll start with one thing and go from there. How does that sound?"

Melanie and Rhonda glanced at each other, and Nora saw a look pass between them that she couldn't figure out, almost as if they'd thought of the same secret at the same time. She couldn't imagine what it could be. In a town where everyone knew everything about everyone else, she didn't think there were that many secrets to be shared.

"You should try a ballroom dancing class," Melanie said decisively. "There's a little place at the edge of town called the Crescendo Dance Studio. It's really fun, and the teacher is very patient. I think you should start with that."

She couldn't come up with an objection. She thought it was as good an option as any. Ice skating seemed more likely to end in a broken ankle, and she'd always been so bad at cooking that the idea of that class made her think it was only going to result in embarrassment.

As for the shelter idea, she didn't mind dogs, but she was already walking around outside in the cold far too much for her own comfort. She had experience with dance, at least, although the fact that neither Melanie nor her mother realized that reminded her uncomfortably of the distance that had grown over the years.

"Ballroom dancing it is," she agreed, and frowned as Rhonda and Melanie exchanged another of those knowing glances. "But the festival takes priority."

"Of course!" Both women on either side of her agreed in tandem, and Nora let out a breath.

It was decided, then. But there was no rush.

She'd get around to it eventually.