We’re silent for a few seconds.Okay, I need to do this.“I was uncomfortable that night and already considering ending our deal. I had started to feel gross when I saw her even before that—moment happened.” I watch her as I say the next part. “But I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and gave her another chance.”
An expression I don’t recognize crosses her face. She opens her mouth, then closes it without uttering a word. I stand to pace—a nervous, ugly energy filling my body, making me restless.
“The next night, she called me and asked if I’d drop her off at the music event.” I grip my hair and release it and keep moving. “She said she had a new friend there she wanted to meet up with, so she had a ride back. I was still going to say no, but she offered me a hundredbucks for what was supposed to be maybe twenty minutes of my time.” I pause, rocking back on my heels, and shove my hands into my pockets. I trace the woodgrain with my eyes as the night flashes through my mind.
Guilty, disgusting, so fucking stupid.
“What is it?” She asks, leaning forward sounding—concerned for me.For me.
I shrug and continue the honesty, no matter how difficult it is for me to do. “I feel…dirty now.” I drag my foot across the floor, balancing on the other leg. “I probably sound dumb, but the money I accepted, and the things that happened because of me needing more money makes me feel…well, dirty.” I try to gauge her reaction to the nonsense I’m spewing, and instead see compassion and understanding written across her face. No wonder I’m such a mess without her. This gorgeous, generous heart used to belong to me. “Hey, I deserve to feel this way, Becks.” I want her to know that Iknownow.I’m aware I was the cause of everything that broke.
“Fuck that, Carter, but we can talk more about it later. Finish the story.” A heavy sigh of frustration and contentment escapes me. I am damn happy to be in her orbit, yet also filled with guilt and self-disgust. The contradicting emotions war inside me, so I start pacing again, rolling my shoulders and scuffing my boots against the hardwood floor.
Oh, Shit.
I sit immediately and work to untie my workboots. “Well, that night, I pulled up to get her, and she’s wearing all this—” I gesture to myself, unable to stifle the distaste coating my voice. “Well, I chose to ignore it and her and head towards the event.” The laces are tight and take a little extra tugging to undo, but I keep working on them. “It was right after work, so it was nice and early in the day.” With one last pull, my boots are loose enough to tug off. “With such a short drive, I was going to drop her off and use that money to get you something lovely—a coffee and baked treat the following morning or something we could have enjoyed together.” I feel another wave of loss and regret flow through me. We had so many mornings like that. “I distinctlyremember checking the weather to see if we could have a night in the back of the truck.” I scoff at my idiocy. I wanted to get lucky that night.
A muffled sound of amusement comes from her seat. She knows why I always liked to plan truck dates. We sit in silence, in our shared memories, and I hate to feel the moment transition from remembered pleasure to what this conversation actually is—a confession.
I clear my throat. “We get there, to the Friday Festival, and suddenly she was refusing to get out of my truck.”Oh, Carter, I don’t know anyone there, can you wait here with me until my friend shows up?“I realize now it was a mistake, but I felt like a monster just leaving this girl, young woman, in a huge crowd where I was the only person she knew. I’m fairly confident now that there was nofriend.In fact, I thought that it was so strange that she kept steering us quickly from one place to another claiming some off the wall reason or another to do so. At one point she said the music was hurting her left ear, so we needed to move to the other side of the stage for it to mostly go in her right ear.”
Stupid, clueless.
Becky tilts an eyebrow at me, and I fill the silence, answering the unspoken rebuke. “I know, Becks. I was stupid and blind to what she was truly doing. I honestly still don’t fully understand it. She was such a low priority in my mind, that I didn’t even consider dissecting her choices.”
In character, Becky doesn’t let me get away with my excuse. “That’s willful ignorance, Carter.” She doesn’t sound angry, but quietly resigned to the truth. Tired. But I’m caught up in the way that she said my name, and wondering if she can do it again. I stop walking and turn to her.
There she is, my Becky, sitting rightherein front of me,talking to meand I want to hold her, touch her, kiss her like I love her.Fuck, I love her.Another jolt of loss shoots through me, making my heart ache. I lift my hand and rub my chest in some kind of foolhardy way to soothe where it hurts. Her eyes sharpen at the movement, watching my hand closely. Then she drags her eyes up to meet mine. She’sseeing through to the heart of me, I can feel it. And I’m terrified of what she can see there.
“And?” She asks, not impatient but guiding, breaking me out of my Becky fixation.
“Oh, uh, yeah.” I need to think for a moment to remember what I was talking about. “And…anyway, yes, you’re right. I was choosing to ignore everything that made me uncomfortable, and she did a lot of that.”
“What do you mean?” Her response is sharp and immediate—serious Becky.
I love serious Becky.I bite back the urge to respond to that tone of hers the way I have for years. Then her question penetrates, and I’m reminded of this shit hole I dug for myself—of the way that night ended—and any comfort I had in the moment is buried under a mountain of regret.
18
THE TRUTH
BECKY
Iwatch Carter’s face after my question. I watch him bite back a smartass comment. He’s always been one to bait me into the tone I just gave him, but then something happens and his eyebrows draw together to make a small furrow. His lips thin beneath his overgrown beard to the point where they disappear. I’m confident he’s grinding his teeth. I simply sit and watch as his face falls from intrigue to something much darker. A lot like my mood since he started talking about this little bitch and her lack of boundaries.
“Well, like I said, I really didn’t like her touching me, but she did it all the time, even when I asked her to stop.”
Like this shit.
“She just ignored me like I was being ridiculous.” Carter takes off his second boot and drops it onto the floor, finishing his idea. “Shit, I don’t know. It’s stupid. It’s not a big deal, never mind.” To my shock, he stands up and takes them to the entryway, dropping them into their spot by the front door.
“Of course it’s a big deal.” I react to his self-recrimination like I always have. But, there’s something about his language tonight—the way he’s talked about this whole situation—it’s caused an icy frisson of dread to slowly creep through my body. Currently, it resides low inmy belly, but I feel it climb up my spine. “Nobody has arightto your body, Carter.” I watch a familiar light in his eyes brighten at my tone, then dim a little. “But, we’ll get back to that. Go on, please.”
He sits back down, closer to me—close enough to touch—and starts bouncing his leg again, shaking the entire couch. I ignore it, locked onto his words. “Before I know it, the night’s over. She asks for a ride home, and I agree?—”
“Wait.” I interrupt him, needing to get this out now. “Carter, I—I saw you there that night. I knew you were with her because I was there too.”
His eyes go wide and his face falls. “Oh, Becky, shit.” He slides closer and grabs one of my hands. Wanting that connection, I let him. “I am so sorry you saw that.” His throat bobs with a heavy swallow and his eyes trail down from my face to where our fingers tangle together. He squeezes them with a barely-there pressure.
