A heavy, awkward pause hung in the air.
“Oh.” Rita cleared her throat again, her eyes darting around the diner. Crimson colored her face. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Hey, I gotta run, but it was great seeing you again and, uh, condolences.”
She rushed off, nearly knocking over a server in her haste.
Good fucking riddance.
“Old friend?” I asked.
“In the sense that she used to copy off my math tests.” Jules was starting to regain color, though the shock hadn’t fully left her expression. ”As you can probably tell, she’s the biggest gossip in town.”
“Yeah.” I eyed her with concern. “How are you feeling about the Alastair news?”
I felt partly vindicated by the man’s financial ruin, but Jules had enough going on with her mom’s death without dealing with the ghost of her disgusting stepfather.
“Shocked, but not surprised, if that makes sense.” She took a deep breath. “I’m glad Rita told me. I know they’re just rumors, but when I think about it, it all kind of makes sense—why he left my mom so little money, the mysterious circumstances surrounding the fire. At least Alastair was held somewhat accountable for the things he did.”
“And now he’s dead.”
“And now he’s dead,” Jules repeated. She huffed out a small laugh. “No need to bring up that asshole again.”
“Agreed.”
The server arrived to take our orders, and I waited until she left before I switched the subject. “So, Jules Miller, huh?”
She winced. “I changed my last name. Miller was my mom’s name. I wanted a fresh start after I left Ohio, so I applied for a legal name change.”
I almost choked on my water. “How the fuck didn’t I know this? Ava never mentioned it.”
“That’s because Ava doesn’t know. It’s just a name.” Jules fiddled with her napkin. “It’s not important.”
If it wasn’t important, she wouldn’t have changed it, but I resisted pointing that out. “How’d you come up with Ambrose?”
Some of the tension left her body, and a shadow of mischief crossed her face. “It sounds pretty.”
A laugh rose in my throat. “Well, there are worse reasons to choose a name,” I said dryly. “Is it weird, being back here?”
Jules paused before answering. “It’s funny. Before this trip, I built Whittlesburg up into this monster in my head. I had so many bad memories here—good ones too, but mostly bad. I thought coming back would be a nightmare, but other than the revelation about Alastair, it’s been so…normal. Even running into Rita wasn’t so bad.”
“The monsters in our imagination are often worse than those in reality.”
“Yeah,” Jules said softly. Her gaze lingered on mine. “And what about your monsters, Josh Chen? Are they worse in your imagination or in reality?”
A silent, charged beat passed between us while I debated my answer.
“Michael sends me letters almost every week,” I finally said. The admission tasted sour, like something I’d stored away so long it spoiled before it saw the light of day. “I don’t open them. They sit in my desk drawer, collecting dust. Every time a new one arrives, I tell myself I’ll toss it. But I never do.”
A commiserating spark glowed in her eyes.
If anyone understood the futility of wishing for a redemption arc that would never come, it was Jules.
“You said it yourself. The monsters in our imagination are often worse than those in reality.” She curled her hand over mine. “We’ll never know for sure until we face them.”
My chest squeezed. Her mother’s funeral was tomorrow, and she was comforting me.
I didn’t know how I ever thought Jules was insufferable, because as it turned out, she was pretty damn extraordinary.