Winter's Kiss (Summer Rain #2)

XIX ~ Missing Link

{If I go, I'm Goin ~ Gregory Alan Isakov} 

...this house, she's holding secrets, I got my change behind the bed, in a coffee can, I throw my nickels in, just in case I have to leave...

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8th November

AVA

    Maybe it was the thick tension that teetered its way across the table from Killian to Elliot that made me unable to touch my lasagne. Maybe it was the thought of the impending argument that Killian was more than likely going to have with me later. Maybe, just maybe, it might have been that my worlds had collided and I didn't know how to control or fix what was happening. My deceit, my secrecy, the eggshells I had walked on for weeks had come back to bite me on the ass. Over dinner. 

   "When did you come back from London, Elliot?" Cady asked him, taking a sip of her wine. 

   "I was contracted to take a job as a partner for the university's arts program. My manager booked me a flight to come home, and here we are," Elliot smiled over at me. 

   "If you were doing so well in London, why did you want to come back?" Killian quickly shot back, acid on the edge of his words. 

   "London was a great opportunity for me to build a new life for myself, but I always felt that I ran away from my life here," he explained, memories of the life he left that Summer flooding back to me. "I finally had an opportunity to come home and work, and do what I always wanted, which was to get my life back on track here."

   "And Ava was a part of that?" Killian asked. 

   "Life just has a funny way of working out," Bodhi laughed, raising his beer, saluting to no one. 

   "I had no idea I would be partnered with Ava," Elliot told him, sensing his tone. "But I'm happy I get to work with her."

   "Me too," I said, quietly. "It was such a shock seeing you after all this time." 

   "It was like a ghost," Elliot nodded in agreement, his eyes glinting against the candlelight on the table, like the way they used to in the candlelight of his cabin. I felt the moment between us linger, the tension rising even further. 

   "Well, who's for dessert?" Bodhi asked suddenly, rising from his seat and beginning to clear the plates at the table. 

   "Finally!" Cady exclaimed, rushing to the kitchen. 

     I handed Bodhi my still-full plate before rising away from the atmosphere at the table. Killian's eyes followed me everywhere I went, like a cold breeze at my neck, making my hair stand on end. I tried to move my body, but my foot seemed tangled on something. My eyes cast downwards as I saw my foot wrapped around the handle of Elliot's satchel. 

   "Shit, sorry, Elliot," I said, grabbing the satchel and unwinding myself from it. "I'll just put this out in the hallway." 

   "Thanks, Ava," he smiled, and instinctively I placed a hand on his shoulder, before removing it just as quickly, thinking better on the idea. 

     With every step away from the table, it was like I could breathe again, but I knew it would only be for a moment. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the hallway. I looked... Scared. Not like myself at all. At least, not the woman I had become since that Summer. I looked like the scared girl I used to be, afraid of everyone, and afraid of myself. Since when did I become so fearful? I thought living out in the city, chasing my dreams would have knocked that out of me years ago. Yet, the more I looked at myself, the less I seemed to recognise.