I know she’s trying to lighten the mood, but something about the joke makes me angrier. She’s standing here in her gazillion-dollar dress and gazillion-dollar shoes like someone who’s never set foot in a discount store. Never had to shop the sales or scramble for every goddamn penny.
You don’t have to, either, dumbass. Not anymore.
I might have money now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember what it feels like to go to bed hungry. To feel the scornful eyes of people like Kaitlyn and Lisa and all the rest of them.
I clear my throat, recognizing that I need to be very, very careful right now.
“You’d better go back inside, then.” There’s a dark note in my voice that I wish wasn’t there, and I scrub my hands down my face in hopes of resetting my attitude. “If you care so damn much what everyone thinks of you, you’d better not leave the gossip squad alone for too long.”
Her expression shifts from concern to irritation. She folds her arms over her chest and stares me down. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I should just apologize for being an asshole, put my arm around her, and take her back inside to grab that glass of wine.
But a lifetime of shame and anger and judgment are bubbling in my gut, and I can’t seem to stop them from frothing up through my stupid mouth. “It means I don’t belong here, Lisa. And clearly, you do.”
She stares at me. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Maybe it is.”
Her eyes narrow. “What are you driving at?”
I could stop this now. Just shut the fuck up and quit talking.
But I don’t. I pivot to face her, angrier than I have any right to be. “Look, you’re the one who decided to change your life,” I growl. “To let go of the trappings of your pampered, elitist world and become a better person.”
She reacts like I’ve just slapped her, and maybe I have. Never in the weeks we’ve known each other have I been so blunt in my judgment. I open my mouth to apologize, but she’s already shaking her head.
“The Test was an experiment,” she says. “A temporary way for me to try new things and learn about myself. I never planned to become my own polar opposite for all of eternity.”
The word temporary rings in my head, bouncing off my brain’s soundwaves with useless and hopeless and dumb until all of them blend into a shrill scream that makes my hands ball into fists.
“Congratulations, then,” I tell her. “You’ve spent your thirty days slumming it in the ghetto. Done your charity work, rubbed shoulders with the unclean, gotten fucked in an alley, all that good stuff.”
She finches at that last part. I should stop, but I can’t. “You’re officially done with The Test,” I say. “There’s nothing keeping you here.”
“Clearly,” she mutters, then winces. “I didn’t mean?—”
“No, I know what you meant.” I shake my head, knowing damn well I have no reason to respond in anger, when I’m the one who started this. But I can’t seem to stop.
“Go on, Lisa. Go back to your perfect, polished little life.”
Her face drains of color. “What?”
“We’re done now, right? Thirty days. That was the agreement.”
Tears fill her eyes. That’s the worst part. I wish she’d yell or scream or kick me. Tell me I’m being a selfish asshole. All of that would be true.
But instead, a single tear spills down her cheek. “Why are you doing this?” she whispers. “I don’t understand where this is coming from.”
I don’t understand, either. Or maybe I do. It’s about where I come from, which is vastly different from Lisa’s world. How did I not realize that before? What kind of idiot entertains the idea that an uneducated dumbshit from the wrong side of the tracks could ever have any place in a world like Lisa’s?
You. You’re the dumbshit.
“It was fun while it lasted, but I think we’re done now,” I say slowly. “Don’t you?”
“Done,” she repeats as she stares at me. “With us, you mean.”
I nod once, not able to say the words. It takes me a full ten seconds to force them up past the knot in my throat. “This was temporary, anyway. You said so yourself.”
