Vivian let out a laugh that could have flayed paint. “A good man? He nearly killed my son—”
Ransom cut her off, tone so level it made the threat more real. “Your son started that fight. I finished it.” He didn’t look away from her, but he didn’t escalate, either. He just held the line, like a bouncer at a bar who already knows the outcome.
She ignored him, turned her fury back on me. “You’re the Sheriff,” she hissed, voice starting to climb in volume. “The face of this community. What do you think will happen when everyone finds out about—about this?” She waved her hand at our joined arms, as if the act itself was contagious.
I felt the fear then, that old, familiar fear of being found out, of losing everything I’d worked for because I couldn’t control the part of myself that still wanted more. But I was too tired for it to matter. The drugs, the pain, the weeks of living like a ghost—all of it boiled off, leaving something hard and clean underneath.
“What do you think will happen, Viv?” I asked. “Think the sky will fall? Think Main Street will board up the windows and tell their kids not to say my name?”
She didn’t answer. She was waiting for me to flinch, but I’d already played out that scenario every night since I first met Ransom. What I hadn’t done was consider how it might feel to say it out loud, in front of him, and see the reaction not on her face but his.
He didn’t smirk. He didn’t gloat. His thumb just kept moving, slow and steady, reminding me with every pass that I wasn’t alone.
Vivian’s voice got louder, probably so she could be heard in the next county. “What about your job, Floyd? What about your reputation? All the years you spent building this—” She pointed to the badge on my jacket, draped over the IV stand like an afterthought. “You’re going to throw it away for some… some phase?”
I almost laughed at that. If she thought any of this was a phase, she clearly hadn’t spent much time in my head.
“What about my happiness?” I said.
She blinked, and for the first time, I saw real confusion there. She didn’t have a comeback. She looked at me, then at Ransom, then back, like she was hoping someone would step in and make it a fair fight.
Nobody did.
I thought about every time I’d told Ransom to leave out the back door. Every time I’d timed his visits around the neighbors, or hidden him in plain sight by never letting anyone see us together.
I thought about how many times I’d stared at the empty spot in my living room, waiting for him to come back, knowing that when he did, it would only be for a few hours, and that the rest of the world would never know what he meant to me.
I thought about happiness, and realized I’d never actually chosen it, not once, in forty-two years of life. Not for myself, anyway. I looked at Ransom, and his eyes were full of something I didn’t have a name for. Pride, maybe. Or just the simple miracle of being seen.
Vivian made one last attempt at sabotage. “You’re going to ruin yourself,” she snapped, voice gone shrill. “If you walk into work with him, you know what they’ll say. You know what they’ll call you.”
I shrugged. “They’ll call me honest. It’s more than I can say for you.”
Her jaw worked like she was chewing steel wool. “I’ll tell everyone,” she hissed, a child’s threat dressed up in Chanel and desperation.
I laughed, actually laughed, the sound surprising even me. “Go ahead,” I said. “Saves me the trouble.”
Something broke in her face then. Maybe it was the realization that she’d already lost, or that the town would move on and she’d still have to live with herself. She stood there for a second, shaking. Then she turned and stalked out, leaving the door open so wide the nurses at the desk could get the whole show.
The second she was gone, the room let out a breath it didn’t know it was holding. Ransom slumped a little, but his hand never left mine.
The nurse at the station peered in, saw that the fireworks were over, and went back to whatever hospital business they had at midnight on a Wednesday.
I leaned my head back, the pillow suddenly less lumpy, and let the silence fill in the cracks.
“I’m proud of you,” Ransom said, voice soft.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” I replied.
He smiled, slow and wide, the kind of smile that made you think maybe, just maybe, things were going to turn out okay. I closed my eyes, squeezed his hand again, and let myself drift.
I was free.
And it felt fucking incredible.
The room was silent except for the beep-beep of Floyd’s monitor.
Ransom sat down again and squeezed my hand. “You know that’s going to be the talk of the town for the next twenty years.”
