One second ticked by. Two seconds ticked by.Say something, Ella!
“Me, too.” I flourished my hand toward my shopping cart in front of me.
This was one of the worst conversations in the history of conversations. I hated that he felt like a stranger. This wasn’t some unknown person, this was Asher. The man I’d been through so much with. Why did he feel so far away from me?
Maybe I needed to say something. Maybe he was waiting for me to clear the air. He was in limbo because of me. Maybe I just needed to be upfront with him, and then slowly we would be able to heal.
“Asher?” I whispered.
His gaze flicked up to meet mine. “Yeah?”
“You will always be my best friend. You know that, right?” I studied him. I was inwardly pleading with him to see that I was willing to forget what he’d said. That I just wanted to go back to what we had before his confession.
My life was a crumbling mess. I sucked at romance. I sucked at keeping myself out of trouble. And I sucked at stability. The only thing that had been constant in my life was Asher, and I feared that I was moments away from losing him. From losing the only steady foundation in my life.
His gaze darkened, and my breath hitched in my throat as fear that he was going to turn and walk away grew inside of me. That he was going to pound the final nail into our friendship, and I was going to be left alone in a town where I didn’t know many people.
Relief washed over me as I saw his expression soften. I watched the light grow in his gaze, and a smile played on his lips. He slowly nodded as he shifted the basket of food to his other arm.
“Yeah, I know.” Then he glanced around. “And you’ll always be my best friend, too.”
The cadence of his voice changed slightly as he spoke the last few words, but I chose not to focus on that. Instead, I celebrated that, perhaps, things could return back to normal at some point. We were going to make it past this hiccup. Our friendship really could withstand anything.
I gave him a wide smile, and he returned it with a similar one. “I’m glad,” I said.
He nodded. “Same.”
I grabbed the handle of the cart and pushed it forward and pulled it back a few times with my foot that was still resting on the bottom rack. I hated the awkward silence between us, but I was taking it as a good sign that he wasn’t sprinting down the aisle.
Baby steps to getting back to normal.
“Well, I should get going,” he said as he lifted his basket. “I’ve got to finish and get out of here.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Sal pushed through the meat department’s swinging doors. “All righty, Ms. Ella, what can I get you today?”
I glanced over at Sal and offered him an acknowledging smile before I turned back to find that Asher had started to retreat. “We’ll hang out later?” I called out.
Asher glanced over his shoulder at me and nodded. Before I could speak again, he was gone.
I stared at the empty space in front of me. I wanted to feel optimistic that we were going to be okay, I really did, but no amount of positive self-talk could stop the fear that was desperate to take root in my gut. “We’re going to be totally fine,” I whispered, and this time, I said it with my whole chest, hoping that if I said it that way, I would actually believe it.
But that didn’t make a difference. My heart knew the truth, and no amount of gaslighting myself was going to fix that. My relationship with Asher had fundamentally changed. And even though I wanted to believe that we could salvage what we had, there was no way I could go back. Even if I tried my hardest, it didn’t change what I knew was for certain.
There was no way I could just forget what he’d said. But, more importantly, neither could he.
2
ASHER
Harmony Island was just too goddamnsmall. When I first moved to this island, that had been a draw for me. After running into Ella at Godwin’s, I regretted moving to a town with only three thousand people.
Who was I kidding. After running into Ella, I was regretting a whole hell of a lot.
I sat in my truck and stared at the steering wheel as I waited for the red light at Main Street to shift to green. The memory of Ella’s panicked eyes as I rounded the corner of the cereal aisle would be forever burned into my brain.
I could see her fight-or-flight instinct rush through her gaze in real time. Nothing like seeing a terrified expression pass over your best friend’s face at the mere sight of you. Definitely a punch to my ego.
