“Tina would have done this for me,” she said.
I avoided her eyes, feeling that this was something she was working through.
Chevonne went on. “But she’d have been berating me the whole time about not taking care of myself. She does that a lot.”
“It sounds as though she cares about you,” I said, my attention focused now on getting the maximum support for her ankle as I could.
“Too much.” The words sounded like a revelation. “So much that she ends up controlling me. And I wonder now that I think about it, how many of the decisions I’ve made in my life were actually mine.”
I put the clips on the end of her bandage and looked at her, finally. Not knowing what to say, I waited for her to speak again. She looked like there were so many things she wanted to say but didn’t know where to start.
Finally, she settled on, “What would you say if I told you I wanted to try to walk home right now?”
“I’d say you wouldn’t even make it to the end of the driveway before you got lost,” I said. “Even as we speak, I’m trying to remember where the rope is so we can reel Princess back in when she has to go out.”
“Okay, maybe that was a bad example,” Chevonne concedes. “What would you say if I told you I don’t want to eat anything until I get out of here?”
I paused for a moment, knowing what she was getting at. She needed a comparison. “I would quite honestly say you know what’s best for you, and if you change your mind, let me know.”
Chevonne shook her head slowly. “This is what I mean. Tina has both literally and figuratively forced things down my throat since we were ten, and I never saw it before. How is it that I’ve only just discovered it?” She paused only for a second. “Because not only has she controlled me, she’s sheltered me from everyone who might see the real her. No wonder she was so determined to get me away from you this afternoon.”
I nodded. “She really does hate me. She has ever since you and I were in the play together.”
“Because all my focus wasn’t on her. Except she pretended to like you around me. Well enough that she actually encouraged me to go on that date with you … Have I been best friends with a sociopath all these years?” The shock in her eyes broke my heart.
“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” I said in an attempt to talk her down from the panic I could feel rising in her even from the other end of the couch.
As if she could sense Chevonne’s anxiety, Princess hauled herself up from her spot in front of the fireplace and nuzzled her way under Chevonne’s arm to encourage a scratch behind the ear. The dog soothed her far better than I could have hoped forat the moment. Maybe one day I’d be able to be there for her, but today, she was going through some stuff.
I could offer her something, though. I was about to ask her if she did want something to eat when the phone rang in the kitchen.
Chevonne stiffened at the sound.
“It’s probably my assistant wondering why I’m not answering my cell phone,” I told her, but the same thought crossed my mind as I’m sure crossed Chevonne’s—that it was Tina calling back. Very few people had this number, and none of my friends knew I was here this week.
I got up and hurried to the kitchen. The phone was old-school without a display to say who was calling, so I picked up.
“Hello?”
“Please put Chevonne on the phone. Is she still there?”
I hesitated only for a second.
“Put her on the phone. Now,” Tina growled.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to go to hell, but I restrained the urge. “One minute,” I said instead.
I put the phone receiver down on the counter harder than I needed to, just to slam it in Tina’s ear, and went back to the living room. Chevonne’s eyes settled on mine as soon as I appeared in the doorway.
“It’s Tina. She wants to talk to you.”
“How did she sound?” Chevonne asked.
“Extremely pissed off.”
She sighed. “Tell her I’m comfortable and I can’t get to the phone. I’ll talk to her when the roads are cleared and I get back to town.”
I almost asked Chevonne to wish me luck, but instead I nodded and went back to the kitchen. I picked up the phone and relayed my guest’s message verbatim.
