Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

“Why? It was a long time ago. It’s not like you’re going to catch anything standing here.”

“Yeah. But I went to third base in here with Josh.” She frowned. “It just feels wrong.”

She was hoping the easy admission of the fact she and Josh had gotten up to no good here might do something to ease the mystique of it all.

“Why am I standing here?” Lark asked, sounding distressed.

“Are you emotionally scarred?” Avery asked.

“Yes,” Lark said. “I used to have tea parties in here.”

“Right. So you were pure as the driven snow when you were a teenager?” Hannah asked.

“I did exactly what was asked of me, thank you.”

“Lark,” Hannah said, shocked. “Were you a virgin in high school?”

“I was! I was under the impression we all listened when Mom gave awkward talks about knowing when to say no and respecting ourselves and speaking softly, but carrying a can of mace.”

Hannah shot Lark a hard glare. “Did you really think I was that well behaved?”

They stood there, underneath the vines, the sunlight barely filtering through the green, casting them in a golden glow.

“I thought you were mostly in a serious relationship with your violin. I guess if I thought about it—and I didn’t—I would have figured you and Josh did it.”

Hannah snorted. “Did it? Are we in high school now?”

“Well, we’ve never really talked about this sort of thing!”

It was true, they hadn’t.

Though, Hannah had to admit she hadn’t exactly taken a keen interest in Lark’s personal life as a teenager. Her own had been too consuming.

“But it really never occurred to me that you would do anything like that, Avery. I thought only Hannah snuck,” Lark said.

“Hey!” Hannah said.

“Well,” Lark said. “You were sneaky. But I thought it was just cigarettes more than boys.”

“There was one boy,” Hannah said.

Not sure why she was being defensive since there had been many since, and she wasn’t insecure about it. Maybe because Josh hadn’t felt like sneaking around to her. He’d felt dangerous and thrilling. Wonderful and terrible.

Even now, what she’d shared with him wasn’t like anything else ever had been.

And it killed her to admit that to herself.

“I didn’t want to get caught,” Avery said. “Mom would have killed me. But I wanted him. I...wanted things.” Avery frowned, then shook her head. “Might as well have been another life.”

“I mean, I didn’t consider myself rebellious,” Hannah said. “Not at the time, anyway.”

She had just felt so much. That had been her problem back then.

The need to leave, the need to stay. The clawing desperation to do whatever it took to get to her preferred school. She had been consumed with it. And in the end it had burned her to ash. But the bonus of being ash was that it was much harder to set her ablaze now.

That utter destruction had been beneficial in some ways.

Like going from lava to obsidian. She was hard now. And if she ever regretted the loss of that bright burning girl that she’d been... Well, she let herself have a moment, and then she moved on. She also let herself remember that that girl had hurt. All the time. It was better to be the person she was now. Sleek and shiny with no vulnerable surfaces.

There were no loose ends here, not for her. There was only her life back in Boston. This was...funny. Interesting in a way. A chance to be home without really being home. This was just a stopover for her.

“You really loved Josh, didn’t you?” Lark asked, an open sweetness in her voice, a sentimentality that scraped Hannah raw.

“Yeah. I did. Which was a good thing because I learned something valuable. Love sucks, and you don’t need it.”

“Seriously?” Avery asked. “That’s a bit cynical, even for you.”

“Okay, how about this. I’ve had love. And through that discovered it wasn’t for me.”

“Don’t you miss...men?” Lark asked.

Hannah laughed. “Um. No. When I want one, I invite him home. Add that to the list of things I’ve learned. You can have sex without being in love.”

“Sure,” Lark said. “But...companionship with sex is nice.”

“No,” Hannah said, crossing her arms like it might block out any feelings her sisters were trying to project onto her. “I don’t want companionship, I want an orgasm. And then I want whatever dude I brought home out the door.”

“You don’t wonder what you’re missing?” Avery asked.

“I’ve been in love,” Hannah said. “I haven’t been the principal violinist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, though. So, that’s next on the list. And anyone in my life has to go beneath that as a priority. I don’t know very many people willing to do that. Do you?”

“A job is just a job,” Avery said. “Love is... It’s important. You build a life with somebody and... And it matters. It means something. It becomes part of who you are.”

Avery had a way of making her choices sound superior even when she was trying to be nice.

“You say that like I don’t know,” Hannah said. “I just don’t want it. I know that’s hard for you to understand, but I like the person that I am. I don’t want to change for anybody.”

“I just think that’s sad.”

“Because you can’t see that somebody could be happy with a different life than you have. Just be happy with your situation and don’t worry about mine.”

“Okay, Goody Two-shoes,” Avery said, turning to Lark. “Why weren’t you sneaking off with boys?”

Lark looked like she’d swallowed a rock. “I don’t know,” she said, lifting her shoulder in a way that made Hannah almost certain she knew exactly why. “I couldn’t have... It would have destroyed me. Like, can you imagine? I would have imploded. It was way better to only have romances in my head. I had to go...grow up.”

It was easy to look at Lark and see a boundless optimist, but Hannah had to wonder if it was...just the opposite to what she did. If Lark used a sort of untouchable facade of joy