Elijah stiffens. “Ma’am?”
Bethany’s gaze slides over me, taking inventory like I’m pawn stock. “She’s been busy lately,” she says, voice pitched just loud enough. “Haven’t you heard?”
Heat rushes up my neck. “Stop.”
"Oh, honey," she goes on, kicking back like she’s queen of the church. “You really think my husband would keep going around her if she wasn’t already fucking him?”
Gasps ripple, the kind of soft little sounds people make when they’re starving for a mess and pretending they ain’t.Somebody sucks in a breath like it’s scandal and salvation at the same time.
Elijah turns to me so fast it’s almost violent. “What is she talking about?”
“I’m not,” I start, panic crawling up my spine. “I haven’t…”
“Y’all been seen all over,” Bethany cuts in smooth. “At the gym. At the store. At the diner. Funny how that works.”
“Elijah,” I say, desperate now, hating myself for needing him to believe me. “You know me.”
His jaw tightens. “Have you been seeing him?”
“No.”
“That ain’t what people are saying. ”
“I don’t care what people are saying,” I hiss, because I’m about to lose my shit in a church like the Lord ain’t got enough problems. “I care what’s true.”
Bethany smiles like she’s enjoying a private joke, eyes bright with it. Elijah steps back from me, just a little, but enough. It’s the tiniest distance in the world and it still feels like the floor dropped out.
“You told me you wanted something different,” he says quiet.
“I do.”
“Then why does his name keep following you?”
Because he won’t stop showing up. Because he thinks he’s protecting me. Because Hell won’t let me breathe without attaching me to somebody and calling it my fault.
“I didn’t ask for it,” I whisper.
The pastor starts the sermon and nobody’s listening to him, not really. Folks keep their eyes forward like they’re holy, but their attention stays right here, wrapped around my throat.
Elijah doesn’t sit next to me for the rest of the service.
By the time we walk out into the parking lot, the air feels thick with humiliation and judgment and the kind of heat that makes you want to peel your own skin off just to get away from it.
“I need to know,” Elijah says, voice tight. “Are you still involved with him?”
“I was never involved,” I snap. “He’s married.”
“That ain’t never stopped men before.”
The words sting because they’re true about the world even if they ain’t true about me.
“I’ve barely kissed you,” I say suddenly, the frustration spilling out like I can’t hold it anymore. “We been seeing each other for months and you ain’t even done more than kiss me. You think I’m sneaking around with a biker?”
His face flushes. “That ain’t fair.”
“What ain’t fair is being judged for something I didn’t do.”
He looks torn. Hurt. Suspicious. Like he wants to be the kind of man who believes a woman and he’s fighting the part of him that’s been trained not to.
