20
“I just...I thought that he really loved me but then I saw this.” Hannah, a fifteen-year-old camper turned her phone toward Ava.
On the screen was a picture of a guy with his arm hung over a girl in a bikini.
Hannah pointed to the people in the photo. “That’s Greg and my best friend Jessica.”
The picture didn’t look particularly romantic in nature, so Ava asked, “Are they friends?”
“Friends?” Hannah’s expression and tone told Ava she’d missed the point entirely. “He posted this picture on Instagram.”
Right.And to a teen that was practically a marriage proposal. Ava knew that but she was clearly distracted by her own love triangle which she should not be thinking about in a session.
Trying to push all thoughts of Asher and the “beautiful blonde” he’d been seen with around town aside; Ava did her best to focus on Hannah. She asked, “Have you spoken to Greg since he posted it?”
“I texted him but he left me on read.”
Being ‘left on read’ was a big insult in this digital age. It meant that you sent someone a message, they read it and didn’t respond.
Tears formed in Hannah’s eyes. “Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
Sadly, Ava didknow exactly what that felt like. She’d messaged Asher this morning and had yet to hear anything back from him.
Ava started to wrap up her session with Hannah, giving her some tools to deal with the anxiety she was feeling. As she spoke to the young girl, she realized that it didn’t matter if you were in your teens or your thirties, relationships were tricky, and technology only exacerbated issues.
If Asher had social media, Ava hated to admit it, but she would have done a deep dive into it. Thankfully, he didn’t, so she hadn’t fallen down that particular self-destructive rabbit hole.
And to her credit, she’d stopped herself from looking up Blake’s social media to see if she could find any clues as to what he’d been up to over the weekend. It had been radio silence from him since she’d woken up to a handwritten note explaining that he had to go into work and he’d reach out to her as soon as he possibly could.
Forty-eight plus hours later, she hadn’t been reached out to. She wondered if that was normal post-hookup etiquette, or if like the book of the same name, he just wasn’t that into her. She wanted to ask Viv, but she feared if she did, she’d have to reveal that she’d spent the night with Asher, which she wanted to keep private.
It was all so confusing. When Ian and Ava got together social media wasn’t as much of a big deal. Everyone was on Myspace and the only thing that mattered on that platform was who your top eight friends were.
Once Hannah left, Ava checked her phone to see if Asher had responded to her.
He hadn’t. She wasn’t even left on read. He hadn’t even opened her message, which to her felt worse.
Word around town was that there had been a county wide raid and that the sheriff’s office had requested backup from local law enforcement. Since Asher had experience in the gang and narcotics division, he’d gone to assist them.
That was a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he hadn’t been able to “reach out” except for the fact that last night Ava was having dinner at Sue Ann’s with Audrey and Viv and Kelly informed them that Asher was not only back in Hope Falls, he’d been in just an hour before and picked up dinner with a mystery woman who Kelly described as a tall, sexy blonde.
Ava knew that he didn’t have any sisters; she’d asked. It could be a colleague, but that seemed like a long shot. They hadn’t made any commitments to each other when they spent the night together, so technically he didn’t owe her any explanation and he could pick up dinner with anyone he wanted. He had made no promises of exclusivity, or even of there being more than just that night.
If anything, it was the opposite. The words he’d spoken to her right before he’d kissed her were playing on a constant loop in her head.
“This is a bad idea.”
He’d literally spelled it out for her, but she’d still dived right in. Not even dived, she’d cannonballed in. Or maybe, considering the outcome, belly flopped would be a more accurate description.
Oh well, she was off work in five minutes and she planned on going back to her cabin and binge watching one of the Real Housewives series. She’d found nothing distracted her quite like trash TV.
As she was gathering her things, Blake poked her head into her office. “Hi Dr. A. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” Ava stood and held the door open so Blake could come in.
Blake was smiling as she maneuvered her way into the room on crutches.
“How are you feeling?” Ava asked, biting her tongue so she didn’t add and how’s your dad?
