Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📗

you would be like Gram. So she tried to give you everything that you wanted so that you would be happy and you would stay, and then you didn’t. And she’d never say it, but it broke her heart. I stayed, I stayed for both of you. And neither of you have given me any credit for that.”

“Get down off the cross,” Hannah said. “We need the wood.”

“Oh you’re both awful,” Avery said, standing up with the wine bottle and heading out toward the exit to the attic.

“Stop,” Lark said. “I didn’t want to be in a fight.” She stomped her foot. “I don’t want to be in a fight. I’m sorry. But I’m upset. And I’m a coward. And I don’t know how not to be. And you all think that I’m this one thing, and I’m not. I’m miserable. I have been for a long time, and it’s so ridiculous to feel this bad and to have everyone in my life think that... Like you just all think it’s going to be okay for me, and I don’t know that. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s going to be okay for you, Avery. Or you, Hannah. I don’t know if we’re going to be okay. And we’ve been... Split apart for all these years, off doing our own things, and not... Not having this fight. We needed to have this fight.”

Hannah’s shoulders sagged. “Lark,” she said. “You’re not stupid, and we don’t think so. It’s just... You’re the baby. And I don’t mean that in a mean way. I mean... Of course Mom and Dad were easier on you. And of course we have kept a running tally of all the ways in which they were easier on you. That’s how that goes.”

“I don’t feel like I had it easier than the two of you. I felt incredible pressure to be good and to never disappoint them. And I was always living in hell not able to control my emotions and knowing it made Mom sad, always wanting to follow rules and finding it hard. I did not have it easy.”

“Of course you don’t think you did,” Avery said. “The baby never does.”

“I’m sorry,” Lark said. “I’m just... I’m sorry that I was off on my own, and that I wasn’t here to see you and the kids as much as I should have been. That I wasn’t in a place where you could tell me about David.”

Avery sighed. “It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t even want to know about it. Nobody could have been close enough to me to know about it.”

“I’m sorry, Hannah, because we could have known each other a lot better. And we could have supported each other. But we were both too busy trying to show that what we did was the most special.”

“It hasn’t been all bad. We haven’t been as close as we could have been,” Avery said. “But we’re here now. And without you... I never could have left him. I wouldn’t have gone to the police. You were both there when I needed you. Even when you were being a bitch, Hannah.”

“Some say it’s part of my charm.”

“It is. Because if you hadn’t been a mean bitch, if you had been nice to me instead, I think I just would have fallen apart. And I don’t think I ever could have faced it. It was the anger that got me through.”

“You know, this was Gram’s doing,” Hannah said. “She was always trying to make us talk.” She laughed. “Look at us now.”

“I wish she and Mom could’ve made up.”

“Me too,” Avery said.

They sat in silence for a moment, looking around their little circle at each other, each holding their wine and looking sad.

“That was like old times,” Lark said. “Me freaking out and being a brat.”

Except nothing bad had happened. They were just still here with her, and she felt better.

“We’re all brats,” Avery said. “Or, we all can be.”

“No, it was good. I need... I want him. And I need to be brave enough to take a chance.”

“You should be more of a slut like me,” Hannah said.

“I mean, the problem is it’s him. Right? It’s not sex. It’s that it’s Ben.”

Hannah made a disgusted sound. “Sadly, I relate to that.”

“Well, you came back here for a reason,” Avery said. “Maybe he’s part of it.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll get my heart broken again.”

“Maybe,” Avery said. “But in a few years, I hope that I need you to talk me into trying something again. And I hope that you’ll tell me it’s worth the risk.”

Lark nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Now,” Hannah said. “Are you ever going to choose fabric for your quilt square?”

“I don’t know.” She pulled the swatch book out of her bag, and turned to one of the back pages. There were a few swatches in there, but there was a yellow one, butter soft and pale, unlabeled. “I keep looking at this one. But it’s yellow, and I’m not sure.”

“Lark,” Hannah said. “Whatever you choose, you’ll make it into something beautiful. That’s what you do.”

“You really think that?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said. “It’s one of the very annoying things about you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“But also, know that I think you’re amazing,” Hannah said. “And that I think the Craft Café is brilliant. And that might be the wine talking, so don’t ask me tomorrow when I’m sober.”

“Oh I will. I’m going to make sure that I get all compliments from either of you in writing for posterity, forever.”

“I’ll give it to you gladly,” Hannah said. “If you take a chance with your guy.”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Because,” Hannah said. “I’m out here dealing with some old drama. Avery is starting over. It seems fair.”

“Remember how Gram used to give us a candy bar, and have us divide it into three pieces. But whoever did the cutting had to pick last?”

“It had to be equal,” Avery said.

Lark looked around at her sisters. It was really too bad that life