She knowssomethingor she wouldn’t be acting so distant from me.
My question now iswhatdoes she know?
She can’t know everything, she hasn’t told me to get out of the Heights and never come back.
“These grants are limited in number and intended for those who are serious about contributing to the local community, the society, and economy that exists within Smoky Heights.”
“Sure,” I tell her, extremities going numb. I think my vision might be blurring, too, if I were to look too closely at it.
“I have to ask you if that’s your intention, Avery Flint.”
My eyes slam shut, and I rock back in my seat.
“Or is it Amelia Marsh?”
Rory continues down the list of names that I’ve used over the past nine years, her finger trailing the sheet in front of her, up and down as she reads them off. More than a half dozen in all.
I stop her before she can get to my birth name.
“Please,” I say, a shaky whisper.
My nerves should be fraying at the edges, but I think this is where I enter the numb stage.
She peers up from the document in her hand, eyeing me over it.
“Clearly you’re hiding some things,” she says. “And what they are is none of my business. Your background checks came back clean, so I don’t suspect you of some sort of crime ring or anything. The only thing that held up your application all this time was the confusion on the multiple names, because the agency had to continue running those back one by one, and doing a check on each one. And, of course, the question on your income. The fact that you changed your name five times in three years isn’t going to lead to a negative outcome on this grant, but it does make me question your intentions here.”
My breaths don’t come, it’s like the air can’t reach my lungs, the only thing I’m getting is a sporadic intake of jagged wheezes and gasps.
It must go on for a while because when my vision comes back Rory is in front of me, kneeling with her hands on my cheeks.
“Hey,” she says. “You’re okay.”
She’s so strong, so confident, I believe her.
The glass of water she hands me helps, as does taking in my surroundings. The blown up black and white shot of the older woman on the wall. The miniature diorama of the town in the window. Realizing I’m not in that college dorm where my new life fell apart. These people aren’tthosepeople.
Did I really think I could hide out in this town for long and it wouldn’t bite me in the vag? If I were in a horror movie, I’d be the dumb-as-fuck girl who stopped to ask, “Who’s there?” rather than running for the hills when the killer got in the house. I would be screaming at me in a theater. It’s embarrassing, really. I should’ve known better.
When my chin stops wobbling, my lungs cooperating once more, I try using my vocal cords. “I’m not lying to you about wanting to be here,” I tell her.
One thick, smooth brow of hers ticks up. “Do I want to know what youarelying about?”
“I don’t want anyone to know,” I admit in a small voice. “But it’s probably time I told Weston.”
“I think so too,” she agrees, folding her arms over her chest, leaning back on her desk in front of me.
“And if he wants me to leave, I won’t come back,” I promise her.
As much as I might want to.
TWENTY-THREE
WESTON
“I need to talk to you,” she’d said to me when she got home earlier this evening.
“Me too,” I’d told her, practically vibrating with excitement. “And me first.”
