“I’m not saying you would. I’m just asking because—” I blew a cloud of smoke in her face, and she shrank into her hoodie. “Why did you tell me?”
“It just felt natural.”
“If it upset you—”
“No, of course it didn’t.”
“Even Will explained it. Sometimes I’m too direct.”
Bullshit.
“Did you tell him too?”
I was going down a dangerous path. Too dangerous, even for me.
“No. It just hasn’t come up,” she admitted.
I stayed quiet. I couldn’t keep secrets from her. If Will found out . . .
“James, I don’t understand why you’d hold on to something I told you in a moment of weakness.”
“The honest way you told me,” I replied spontaneously.
“What do you mean?”
“I felt envious.”
We went back to confronting each other with our eyes. One, two, three, maybe four seconds. Then we both looked down.
“James.”
I felt her eyes burn my fingers as she tapped the joint to get the ash off.
“I wanna ask you something else.”
I closed my eyes. “If you must.”
“What were Amelia and Brian doing in your family photos?”A busybody, that’s what you are.
“Mind your own fucking business. That doesn’t concern you.”
“You were a cute kid, though.” She said it laughing, almost childishly, amplifying the envy I felt for her carefreeness.
Her way of prying into my past started to make me uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to know shit,” I spat, standing up.
I put the blunt out in the ashtray on the veranda table. When I walked past her to go back in, I noticed she was getting pale.
“I need—”
At a certain point she tried to get up but dizzily wobbled instead.
“You okay?”
“I think so,” she hinted, in a less-than-convincing tone. I got suspicious.
“Should I get you some water?”
