"What are you going to do?" I asked him. Meaning the man who did this to him. Meaning the situation. Meaning everything.
He looked at me with the eye that wasn't swollen shut.
Calm. Decided. Like the answer had been settled before I even asked.
"I'm going to make it right."
Two weeks later I heard through the grapevine that the rival MC president who'd beaten him was dead.
Not arrested. Not hospitalized.Dead.And everyone in Sharp knew who was responsible even though no one said his name.
I was already in love with him by then.
Already in his bed.
Already in over my head in a way that should have terrified me but didn't, because when you're that young, you don't understand that the same man who looks at you like you're his salvation is also the kind of man who makes people disappear.
Five months. That's how long I had him.
Five months of sneaking onto the ranch after my shifts.
Five months of his hands in my hair and his mouth on my throat and the way he said my name like it was something precious he'd found in the dirt and couldn't believe was real.
Five months before he sat me down on the tailgate of his truck and told me I was too young.
Too good. That he'd ruin me if I stayed, and he cared about me too much to watch it happen.
He was going back to Jolene. For the kids. For the family. For the life he'd already built, even if that life was broken.
I cried. He didn't. And that's when I understood: he loved me, but he'd chosen.
And his choice wasn't me.
I started packing that night.
Jolene found me before I finished.
I was at my mother's house—the sagging two-bedroom on the east side of Sharp that smelled like cigarettes and disappointment.
Throwing clothes in a duffel bag, trying to figure out where a girl with a high school diploma and three hundred dollars in cash was supposed to go.
She pulled up in a white Cadillac. Different model than the one she probably drives now, but the same energy.
Immaculate. Expensive. The vehicle of a woman who wanted you to know exactly where you stood relative to her, which was beneath.
She walked up to the porch. Blonde hair perfect. Nails perfect. A smile that wasn't really a smile.
"Marlena." She said my name the way you'd say the name of a bug you'd found in your kitchen.
Identified. Assessed. About to be dealt with.
"Mrs. Lyle."
"I'm going to say this once." She didn't raise her voice. Didn't have to. The control was the terrifying part—the absolutesteadiness of a woman who'd rehearsed this conversation and already decided how it was going to end. "You're going to leave Sharp. Tonight. You're not going to call him. You're not going to write him. You're not going to show up at the ranch or the clubhouse or anywhere he might see you."
"He already ended it. I'm leaving."
"Good. Then we understand each other." She took a step closer. Close enough that I could smell her perfume. Something sweet and expensive that had no business on my mother's porch. "But I want to be clear about what happensifyou change your mind. If you come back. If you decide that what you had with my husband entitles you to anything."
