“I’m sorry—” Oona said at the same time.
We both smiled. “Let me,” I said. “I’m really sorry I freaked out about… the whole thing.”
“I’m sorry it happened behind your back,” she said.
“Things happening behind my backisa trigger with me but you didn’t know that. You were just…” I almost said,protecting your heart, but that made me think of Alex, building up defenses around us both to make sure he could never be hurt. Fortifications had consequences, and also this wasn’t about anything Oona had done, or hadn’t. “I just worry about him.”
Oona twisted her hands together. “Is it that or…”
“What?”
“I mean, is it…me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Am I… ruining the show?”
“What?”Bear leapt away from me.
“Like, is having me around a problem? While you’re blowing Alex kisses from the stage and stuff? I know you’re just playing it up for the crowd. Just part of your act.”
My act. Doll Devine, the gal, the broad, laughing big and throwing a huge, lonely cowgirl shadow. She was exhausting, and I was sotired.If I stripped away all the spangle and bluster of Doll Devine, what was left? What was true? It was all too much to explain.
“I want to say I’m not bothered by it,” Oona said. “But it’s a little intimidating, trying to find a way in. Not just at the pub.”
“Well, Alex is hard to get to know.”
Bear walked over to Oona and sat at her feet. She reached to scratch behind his ears. “I meant… you,” she said.
“Oh.”
“Your reaction to me and Alex was whoa, you know? It made me think… maybe there’s something else to this. Maybe shedoes, you know, have a little bitty crush on—”
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“Okay, I won’t. But maybe by stoking the speculation down in the pub, you’re… keeping other women away? Because it protects him but alsoyouand what you have. And maybe… maybe there’s not a way in which this can work out. Him and me.”
Tears sprang into my eyes again, this time in earnest. “Don’t say that either.”
Oona concentrated on Bear’s ears.
“I don’t know how much he’s told you,” I said. “About how our lives were thrown together?”
“I think I have the relevant facts.”
“We should never have met. There are all sorts of reasons why we shouldn’t have ever had to rely on each other. If he told you everything, then you must understand by now. I’m just this…burdenhe never asked for.”
Oona looked confused. “That’s absolutely not how he sees you—”
“I don’tblamehim for dumping me immediately into foster care, okay? What choice did he have?”
“But didn’t he…? Hold on.”
“But I’ve relied on him and kept him to myself too long, so long that I can’t—” Bear walked back to me. I put my head on his neck. “I can’t lose him again.”
I shook with sobs against the dog.
“Dahlia Devine,” Oona breathed. “There you are.”
