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Hope had asked if she wanted to leave and Ava had stood there with her mouth open long enough that Hope was the first to break eye contact. Long enough that she saw the shadow of disappointment, of hurt, pass across Hope’s face and her first instinct had been to yell that she’d stay, of course she’d stay.

Because hurting Hope was the last thing she wanted to do.

Except she hadn’t said anything because Alice had been crying and Hope’s attention had turned to her daughter and in that quick second Ava had had a chance to gather herself just enough to stop herself relying on her instincts.

Trusting was one thing. She’d decided to trust Hope and taken the risk and she was glad that she had. But the whole rest of her life?

How was she supposed to decide the course of her life on a dime like that?

So Hope had gone to Alice and picked her up and Caz had stared from one to the other and Ava had swallowed and straightened her spine and said “it’s late, I should be leaving.”

And no one had stopped her.

So she’d walked out of the little cottage, away from the cozy dinner table, down the little garden path and into her own, cold, practically empty house.

At which point she’d panicked and tried to call Quinn about three hundred times and then taken herself to bed. Which didn’t help because the dark just gave her more time to think. More time to worry, to weigh options, to try to solve the impossible.

So the lights had gone on again and in between randomly dialing Quinn’s number and attempting to read a book and remembering the smell of Hope’s body and the touch of her skin, Ava came to absolutely no decision at all.

THE SUN ROSE later than she’d thought, the sky orange and red, the air cold and misty for the first time since she’d arrived. She shuddered under her comforter and then figured she might as well get out of bed since she had nothing else to look forward to except going back to bed.

She made herself tea in the freezing cold kitchen and watched as Rosie the cat balanced expertly on the back fence, strolling without looking, walking the tightrope and making it look easy.

She made it until half past nine, at which point she’d done the dishes, vacuumed, dusted, and marked what little homework there was to mark. Without a hundred essays to grade a week she found that she had more free time on her hands, one of the downsides or benefits to teaching younger kids, depending which way you felt about it.

So she put on her coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and let herself out of the front door, praying that she wasn’t about to run into Hope.

Walking into town, leaves crunched under her feet and she could smell burning. She didn’t know where she was headed until she was already pushing open the door to the bookstore.

“Oh, thank God it’s you.”

If she’d have been in her right mind, and a little faster on her feet, Ava would have registered the screaming child and run before opening the door. But it was too late now. Mila was standing in the middle of the floor, a yelling child on her hip and a harried look on her face.

“Here,” said Mila before Ava could do a thing, and shoved the child into Ava’s arms. “Hold her for a second, I’ll be right back.”

Then Ava was standing alone holding a crying infant and panicking more than just a little. The cries were piercing and loud and Ava had a headache after not sleeping all night and her patience were thinner than a Kleenex.

She looked at the child’s red, sweating face.

“Stop!”

In an instant there was silence.

The child stared up at her with watery blue eyes and Ava stared right on back.

“That’s better,” she said, more quietly. “Honestly, if you think you have something to cry about, you really should stop this process of growing up right now. It doesn’t exactly get easier, you know? I wish being hungry was the extent of my issues.”

The child’s mouth smacked and a bubble of snot appeared in its nose.

“Oh, really,” said Ava, using one hand to pull a tissue out of her pocket and swiping it around the child’s face. “You can’t go around in public looking like that.”

The child chortled as Ava screwed the tissue up and then, failing to find a waste paper basket, laid it gently on the counter.

“I suppose things do get better in some ways,” she went on, not wanting to discourage the child from growing entirely. “I mean, language proves an effective tool once you can use it properly. Then there’s wine, that’s quite nice too.”

“Oh, dear Jesus,” Mila said, bustling back in with a baby bottle in her hand. “For a minute there I thought you’d suffocated her she was so quiet.”

“And yet you didn’t hurry back,” said Ava, arching an eyebrow.