“Yeah, of course.You broke her heart.But there’s more.”
“Has she said anything?”
“She’s not speaking to me anymore.”
“What do you mean more?”
Click.
Day four, the bakery owner keeps Carol late.I circle twice, pissed at the night for getting so big in this city.She comes out with trash bags and a hand at her belly that wasn’t there before.It freezes me.Small, protective.The “more” Sugar spoke of.
I step out of the shadow of the alley like I’m meant to be there.
Carol jolts, then covers it fast with that bartender calm, chin up.“I don’t take out the trash for free, big man.Move out of my way.I’m on the clock.”
“I’ll take it,” I say, and I do.My hands want to shake.They don’t.I walk to the dumpster and kill the bags like they’re a favor that could make up for a robbery and a hundred stupid choices.
When I come back, she’s got the door propped with a flour sack and her arms folded like armor.“You can’t be here.”
“I know,” I say.“I’ll leave.”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and it comes out like gravel.“For Evervale.For the lie.For the way it made you look at the world after.”
She doesn’t blink.“A lie is a lie.Doesn’t matter if you put a bow on it.Jimmy’s insurance scam.Your clean hands.The whole town’s stupid act.I can’t…” Her voice thins.She swallows it back.“I can’t do that anymore.”
“I get it,” I say.I don’t.I want to.“I came to tell you I’m done with lies.You can hate me for what I did.I’ll carry it.But I’m not leavin’ you to carry anything else alone.”
Chapter 20
Humbug
Her eyes flick to the ornament tied to her knob.
Then Carol stares up at me, her lip quivering.“Sugar tell you?”
I shake my head.“No.”
“Then you don’t even know what you’re offering.”
“I know enough,” I say, quiet, like a man loading a gun inside his own chest.“I know I’m not askin’ you for anything back.”
A car rolls by, bass thudding.Somewhere a door slams.Somewhere a dog yells at a train.She looks tired and brave and twenty some and a hundred all at once.
“It’s yours, Jack.”
“I know.”
“Our lie,” she whispers.
“Don’t,” I say, my voice breaking.
“I’m not yours,” she says, her voice firmer.
“Okay.”
“I’ll never be.”
