Page 14 of To Regret a Raven

Leaving at three in the morning had done her no favors. But she’d been unable to sleep, her mind reeling with the bomb Fisher had dropped.

She’d noticed that he’d not been responding when she expressed her feelings, but she’d assumed he just wasn’t ready to say it. She’d never once considered the possibility that he believed loving her to be animpossibility. The audacity of such a statement sparked kindling within her, overshadowing the hurt. She was grateful for the distraction and leaned into the feelingsof anger and resentment. They were unfamiliar, but they were better than the sorrow. She had cried enough already.

The tears had started the moment she stepped onto the elevator, and throughout the evening, into the deepest, darkest hour of the night. She’d used that time to mourn what could have been. The relationship she thought she had and the man she thought she would marry. But then she decided, at some point in that late hour, that she was done. Drie had made herself a promise as a child, so no matter how much it hurt to let go, she would do what she had to do to continue moving forward.

“I can’t be his friend.” She spoke the words to the floor, though she could feel the intensity of her sisters watching and listening. “I love Fisher. He knows that. We’ve only been together for a few months, but I was happy. He could’ve been the one. Things were so easy. Too easy, I guess.” She snorted, looking around at her sisters’ expressions—Jeden’s thoughtful, Sam’s concerned, Nellie’s furious, and Rosy’s compassionate. She shut her eyes again.

“I’m not sure how to proceed. I had no clue he’d been struggling with his feelings, and I feel like such an idiot for missing the signs.” Drie paused, remembering the pain she had seen reflected in his own eyes. “I don’t think he wanted to hurt me, buthe did. And I want to be his friend, but I can’tjustbe his friend. Ican’t.”

“He shouldn’t expect you to. He’s such…such a—dildo!” Nellie interjected.

“Shh,” Rosy hushed gently from the chair she’d pulled up, off to the side of the overcrowded couch. “Let Drie speak.”

Drie smiled weakly at her, the youngest of their five.

“I’ve had my heart broken before. I’ve survived the disappointment of finding out that someone I loved did not care for me in the same way. And I’m grateful every day that I have you guys to show me what unconditional love actually feels like.But I want to be a man’s priority. I don’t need a lot. I just want to be someone’s number one. I want to be a person who doesn’t get walked away from, for once. I deserve to have a man fall completely, desperately, head over heels in love with me.”

“Hell yeah, you do,” Nellie cheered, tackling Drie into the cushions. Even Jeden let a smile crack her chronically serious expression.

“Well, it doesn’t appear that I’m needed.” Grandma Ruby drolled from the archway leading into the hall, where she’d no doubt been loitering and eavesdropping—her two favorite pastimes.

“Grube,” Drie breathed with a smile, extricating herself from her sisters’ limbs to hug the little lady. As always, she patted Drie softly on the back, her body stiff in the hug, but allowing it nonetheless.

Drie stepped back, and Grube smoothed a hand over her soft salt-and-pepper bob as she looked up at her, analyzing her in the same quiet manner as Jeden had. She reached up and patted her gently on the cheek. “As long as you remember your worth, the rest will fall into place. Loving someone is never a mistake. Those who turn their backs on love…That’s who you pity.”

Drie swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Grube nodded and turned toward the kitchen. “I feel like making French toast,” she said. “Jeden, dear, do I need flour or cornstarch for that?”

Jeden released a soul-wearied sigh and climbed slowly to her feet as the other girls giggled. “Neither. Grube, wait, you know I’ll make you— no, we don’t need the flour. Why don’t you— Yes, we need milk. No, that’s coffee creamer. Hey, wait—WAIT! Did you just break an egg in the kettle?”

Drie cackled with her sisters as they watched Grube totter around the kitchen, shadowed by their professional chef of asister who was trying her best to simply prevent the woman from injuring or poisoning herself.

It was a sight Drie had sorely missed while she was away at school. Things were a mess with Fisher, and she still had a lot to work through, but she knew those women would get her through it. And as Grube tossed a sneaky wink over her shoulder amidst the chaos, Drie felt nothing but loved.

7

FONDNESS

“You can’t avoid me forever.” Fisher’s deep voice washed over Drie with a familiarity that ached. She took a steadying breath before glancing up from her notebook, her eyes widening slightly at the sight. He looked… haggard. His hair was unkept, and his eyes were sunken. Even his favorite hoodie appeared wrinkled as he stood beside the table, hands dangling at his sides.

“Fisher, are you sick?”

“No, of course not. Why would you ask that?”

Drie raked her eyes over him once more and shook her head. “No reason.”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t call her on it, opting instead to drag a neighboring chair up to her solitary study table with a deafening scrape.

Drie cringed as the sound echoed in the small campus library. She preferred the larger building across the quad, as it received significantly more patronage, and the hushed buzz of activity was the perfect storm of white noise to quiet her mind—her own personal sanctuary. After growing up in such a busy household, she needed the noise. But sinceheworked there,she’d been unable to return—just one more thing she’d loved and lost in the breakup.

“How did you find me here?”

He dropped into the seat and fidgeted with one of the books she’d set out of the way, turning it over in his hands. “So youarehiding.”

“That’s not an answer.” Drie snatched it from his grasp, stacking it back on her side of the table.

Fisher tilted his head toward the circulation desk, where the staff librarian stood behind the counter, staring directly at their corner. Once she noticed Drie’s attention, however, she straightened and turned to look at the desk computer, though her eyes flicked back guiltily twice more. “The library circuit is pretty small.”