“I was angry at the situation.”
“Well, you’re no longer in that situation.”
“Cherry.”
“Stop saying my name!”
“Are you serious?” He spread his arms in disbelief. “You don’t want to see me anymore?”
She did want to see him. She loved seeing him. “It doesn’t seem like a very good idea,” she said.
“That’s it? I say one stupid thing, and we’re done?”
“Some things are nonnegotiable.”
“What are you talking about?”
Cherry held on to the laundry basket. “My body is nonnegotiable. I never want it on the table.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“Youwere.”
“Cherry, I’msorry,” he begged. “I wasn’t thinking. It just came out.”
“I don’t have to make myselfavailableto your stray thoughts about my body.”
“Stop talking about your body!”
“Youstop talking about my body!”
“Fuck.”Russ’s hands were in his hair. He turned around and faced the street. “This isn’t aboutyour body. I know you think that I have a problem with your weight, but that’s not what bothers me—I swear, it isn’t.”
Cherry stared at his back.
“It’s that you’re already part of someone else’s story...” he said quietly. “You’ve already got your Camelot.” Russ put one hand on his hip and scrubbed at his hair with the other. When he turned back to Cherry, his face was red. “When I go out with you, people don’t even see me. They see your husband, and I fucking hate it. Ihateit.”
“I can’t help that,” Cherry said.
“I know. I swear, I know.” Russ’s eyes were wide and bright.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to feel how I felt last night.”
“I won’t make you feel that way again.”
“No,” Cherry said. “What I mean is”—her voice broke—“I don’t even want toriskfeeling that way. I can’t be with you anymore.”
“Cherry,” Russ said in a low voice. “Please don’t do this. I’m in love with you.”
Stevie started barking. Cherry looked up. Tom had just turned the corner onto their street.
Russ followed Cherry’s attention—to Tom, in his hooded sweatshirt and peacoat, hunched against the cold. She saw the recognition land on Russ’s face. He looked back at Cherry.
Cherry wasn’t sure what to say. What was worth saying.
Russ nodded and turned to walk down the steps.
Tom stopped, still a house away. Stevie was barking and pulling at her leash, the way she did when she wanted to get closer and say hello.
