Page 115 of Forever Dark
Selena let out a breath through her nose, close to a laugh.“Of course.By the jukebox next to the window so we could see if any adults we knew were coming in to catch us skipping school.”
Jessie nodded once.“Still a pair of criminals at heart, even with your job.”
They slid into the old booth facing each other.
Before Selena could say another word, an elderly man in an apron came around the counter, wiping his hands on a dish towel.He was thick through the middle now, hair gone white and thin, but the walk was unmistakable.Same slight hitch in the left leg.Same broad face that always looked halfway to a grin.
He stopped dead.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.“Is that little Selena Raven?”
Selena was already rising.
“Hank.”
He opened his arms and she went into them without thinking.The hug smelled like fryer oil and old cotton, and for one strange second, she was fifteen again and trying to talk him into giving their table free pie because Jessie had failed algebra.
Hank held her back at arm’s length.“Where ya been?”
“Oh,” Selena said, smiling, “around.”
Jessie leaned back in the booth and said, “Selena’s a big-shot FBI agent.Not got time for us small-towners anymore.”
The line was tossed out lightly, but Selena heard what sat under it.
“I’ll always have time for my home,” she said.
And she meant it for once as she said it, which only sharpened the guilt.Home was not a place she had lacked time for.It was a place she had neglected because turning away from it had once felt easier than looking straight at what she had done.
Hank nodded like he accepted the answer or at least had decided not to test it.
“What can I get you girls?”
“Coffee,” Jessie said.“And if you’ve got any sense left, two blueberry milkshakes.”
Hank pointed the towel at her.“You know I do.”
He lumbered back toward the counter.
For a second Selena and Jessie just sat there with the old jukebox at their side and the noise of dishes and low voices around them, neither seeming sure how to begin now that they were actually here.
Selena tried first.
“How’re you doing?”
Jessie gave a short laugh and looked down at the tabletop.“Well.Where to start.”She picked at a nick in the laminate with one fingernail.“I got married.You should’ve been my maid of honor, but you didn’t answer my calls.”
Straight to the pain.That was Jessie.
Selena took them without flinching, though it cost her.
“I’m sorry.I wasn’t myself.I needed to get away from everything.”
Jessie looked up at once.“You mean my brother?”
Selena held her gaze.
“You could’ve gotten away from him,” Jessie said, “without putting me on ice.”
