Page 245 - My FlipBook

T R A I L O F C R U M B S

“I don’t know, Ash. What if he’s sincere?”
“Greta.” Ash stepped close, into her space. “Are you
thinking of going with him? Would you go without me?”
She saw the hurt, the alarm, in his eyes.
“No, Ash.” She stepped back. “I don’t know.”
He watched her without moving, his eyebrows pinched
together. After a full minute of silence, he said, “I won’t ask
you not to live with Dad, but I don’t trust him. And I’ll…I’ll

miss you.”
Greta kept her head turned to spare him the embarrass-
ment of eye contact, knowing how much that last sentence
had cost him to say. “Don’t worry about it, Ash. Okay?” She
stuck the flyer on the fridge with a Dan’s Plumbing magnet.
“Where do you think we should go then? We can’t stay with
Elgin forever, especially now that Dad’s back.”

“I don’t know.” Ash shrugged. “I’m sure Elgin will let us
stay a little longer, or Nate might let us crash there until Aunt
Lori gets back. We wouldn’t end up under a bridge.”
“But think about it, Ash. We could be together again, the
three of us. We haven’t had that chance in seven years.” She
couldn’t stop picturing the house, sitting around a dinner
table with Ash and Roger. A conversation without Patty’s
dog-whistle-pitched voice. For one second, the anger in Ash’s
face fell away, and she knew he saw it too. “Just…what if…”

She let it hang.
Ash shook his head, the moment gone. “I’ll be around no
matter what you decide, Greta, but I’m not ready to go with
him. Not yet.”

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