Dawson drops his gaze to the sponge before bringing it up to my brow line. He rests it on my skin and, with the lightest pressure, drags it an inch along my eyebrow. The result is good, natural looking.
“Nice,” I say.
Dawson leans back to scrutinize my face, then brings the sponge to my chin, barely dabbing beneath my lower lip. “You bit into a charred rabbit and got soot right here,” he jokes. “No, that’s where I see you rest your fist a lot. It’d get smudged that way.”
“Good observation,” I praise again.
“So have you…thought any more about what I said yesterday?”
He doesn’t have to elaborate. We’re in the exact space where it all went down. At the mere mention of that exchange, I sense last night’s tension hanging in the air like an aimless ghost.
I’m surprised that he dared breach the topic, but I’m not upset. The fact that he’s pursuing it shows he really wants to make things work. That he truly believes he hit the heart of the issue. Maybe he did.
“A little,” I say.
With the slightest press of the sponge’s tip, he gives me a gentle smudge along my cheekbone where he got it too dark the first time. This one turns out just right. “And?” he prompts.
“I’m still working through it,” I admit. “I mean, you’re definitely not like my dad, I know that. But I do… sort of relate him to you. I just can’t pinpoint why.”
“Hmm.” Dawson moves his gaze over my face. My cheeks, chin, and forehead, looking for areas that need more work. At last, he settles on a spot by my left temple. “We both play significant roles in your life,” he says. “Sadly, your dad abused that. He left.”
He dabs a bit more, gently grazing my hairline with his feathery touch. “Heleft,” Dawson says again, “not me.”
“That’s true,” I say, “but that’s because we weren’t together long enough.”
“You’re suggesting that if wehadstayed together—”
“You would have left me, yes, the way—” I stop there, but the finishing words hover in the space between us like an unwelcome guest, pulsing, swelling, confirming just what Dawson said.
“The wayhedid,” Dawson says at last.
He holds statue still, as if one movement could tip me off the track. He stays quiet too, allowing me to go further on my own.
Hot tears sting my eyes as the truth floods in. My lip quivers. “I probablydidthink you were going to leave me,” I admit, my voice small. In flood the memories—all the nights Char and I followed Dad in our pajamas, cheering him on as he putted around the living room. I actually made up cheers just for him.Hip hip, hooray for Kyler Ray, he’s getting a hole-in-one today.
The recollection hits a chord of irony as I sit in this uniform. I was his number one fan. The devoted little cheerleader he left behind without so much as a glance.
I don’t want to speak what comes to mind next because I’m not even sure if it’s right. And even as I can admit that he’s onto something—that his view is valid—I feel that inner defense army rising again and prepping for battle.
No,I tell it. We’re not at war here, but I do need to tell him my side of things.
“I’m just thinking out loud,” I tell him, “but if Ididsomehow…sabotagethings between us, which is what you’re suggesting, you made it easy.”
Dawson’s posture stiffens. “How so?”
I can tell his defenses are going up too, but since I’m tearing mine down, he can do the same.
“Think about it,” I urge. “What was my biggest complaint?”
“That I had to go to so many events to further my career.”
“You had to go toeveryevent,” I correct.
He tosses his hands up dismissively. “Okay,every event.It’s how you score jobs, Brinley. They’re practically casting calls.”
“I get that. But I was worried you’d choose your career over me and already I was getting knocked out of the equation.”
Dawson shoots to his feet. “I never wanted you out of the equation, Brinley. You were my girlfriend. I wanted you by my side.”
