"Thea, what she said—"
"I'll put your order in."
I'm gone before he can finish.
Day three, he doesn't try to talk at all. Just orders. Just eats. Just leaves a twenty percent tip exactly, not a penny more or less.
Just like the first thirty-six days, except now we both know what we're not saying.
Jolie notices, of course.
"You're doing the thing," she says on day three, leaning against the counter withWuthering Heightstucked under her arm. She has it open to Page 46.Huh?Wasn’t she on page 58 the last time?
"What thing?"
"The invisible thing. The smile-that's-not-a-smile thing. The 'I'm-fine-everything's-fine' thing." She sets her book down. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Thea—"
"I went hiking. We ran into Kimberly. She said something. I came home. Nothing happened."
"What did Kimberly say?"
I busy myself with wiping down the espresso machine. "It doesn't matter."
"If it doesn't matter, why are you avoiding him?"
"I'm not avoiding him. I'm working."
"You're avoiding him while working. There's a difference." She's quiet for a moment. Then: "Did he do something?"
"No."
"Did he say something?"
I shake my head. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I just need time and space to think about things.”
She studies me with those dark, too-perceptive eyes. "Okay. But Thea?"
"Mm?"
"John 8:33.”
It’s all she has to say, and I nearly break down and cry. The truth. The truth always sets us free. I know that. Believe that. But what if the truth is just too terrifyingly painful to bear?
DAY FOUR STARTS THEsame way.
Seven-twenty-three. Corner booth. Coffee, black, no sugar. Omelet. Twenty percent tip.
Except this time, when my shift ends at six, I'm the one closing.
Gail asked me to stay late because Rhea called in sick, and I said yes because I always say yes, and also because staying busy means not thinking about frozen overlooks and coat collars and the wordslummingechoing in my head.
By six-thirty, the café is empty. The last customer left fifteen minutesago, and I'm wiping down tables and counting chairs (fourteen) and trying not to think about anything except whether we need to order more napkins.
We probably need to order more napkins.
