Carter’s eyebrows slant and his lips press into a thin line while he rolls the watch on his wrist.
“Apparently. I don’t know them.” He taps the screen and gets back to what he was doing.
I want to ask him more but the way he focuses on his tablet suggests the topic is closed.
“I hope you’ll enjoy staying here, despite my unwelcome presence,” I say in the wake of his silence.
“It will do.” It’s all I get from him, and he doesn’t spare me a glance again. This stillness fuels my restlessness. I can’t sit in absolute silence in the same room with another person.
So, I study his sharp features that don’t give anything away. What would happen to his face if he genuinely smiled? The slight twitch of his lips changes Carter’s features whenever he crosses out another day on the calendar he pitched near his laptop.
After he pushes his food around and eats some toast with egg whites, he picks up a red marker and does the same thing.
“Who gets this happy about a holiday going by quickly?”
“You wouldn’t understand. I have better things to do than admire the sunset on your porch.”
“Wow. Boring and condescending.” My mouth clams up a second too late. What on earth possessed me to say that? Carter damaged my filters.
“Boring,” he says, taken aback. “Aren’t you a little mouthy today?”
“I’m sorry,” I stammer.
Carter plays with the red marker and tilts his head, scanning me from head to toe.
“You’re more entertaining when you say what’s on your mind.”
“Well.” I clear my throat. “The cabin doesn’t come with a circus monkey.” I cross my arms defensively and shuffle away before I say any more things I shouldn’t.
Something in his jab scraped over the truth I’d looked past for so many years. Always careful of what I said, I hated offending anyone, and mostly held my tongue with Jared.
Carter doesn’t get angry when I talk back. I let it go for now because I have more urgent things to do. I grab my laptop and plop on the couch. My CV needs some dusting off.
I’m struggling to put into words the skills I have when Carter’s voice makes me fall into his calculating gaze.
“Don’t you have a job to go to?”
It was inevitable he would notice. I was just hoping he wouldn’t bring it up.
“I quit,” I mumble, collecting invisible lint from the arm of the couch.
“Please use your whole mouth to speak.”
“I can’t go back to the office. So I resigned.” I exhale and prepare to get it over with.
His raised eyebrow demands I elaborate.
“They’re”—I enunciate—“there.”
“And? Is that supposed to make you quit?” He puffs, shaking his head. “You got kicked out of your house and job. What a shit week you’ve had. I bet your family is very proud of you.” He lowers into his chair at the little desk and slides an ankle over his knee. “That’s why you don’t want to move back in with your parents? Because you’re embarrassed? So you’re hiding in the woods like a coward?”
Carter rests in the reclaimed chair I worked on for weeks with the posture of a king scolding his subject.
The practiced smile slips into place to hide my shock and hurt. But no matter how hard I try to play it off, my vision blurs.
“There is no family for me to fall back on. I’m a foster child.”
Carter’s smugness drops and a soft swell of pity I’m too familiar with rounds his eyes. I don’t want it from him.
