“Yes,” Cherry said emphatically. “You could have something that isn’t already fucked up. In a place with no bad memories. The whole world is at your feet, Tom—literally. You could have...” She shook her head. “... anything.”
Tom leaned over the table. Angry. “Cherry, if you don’t believe that you deserve good things, how am I supposed to believe that I’m a good thing?”
“Tom!”the girl at the counter called out.
“Fuck,” Tom said, sitting back. He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “What are we doing here?”
“The pizza’s just okay,” Cherry said quietly, “but the theming’s extraordinary.”
He shot her a helpless look. Nothing like a smile. Then stood up.
He came back with a pizza and two plates, and set them off to the side. Like he’d brought the pizza for people sitting at the other end of the table.
Then he sat down right next to Cherry, on the same side of the table. Facing her. He took her hand.
She let him.
Tom hunched forward. “I don’t want the world,” he said. “I wantyou. You’re my lucky day, Cherry. You’re the only home I’ve ever known, and I don’t want...something else. I don’t want a fresh start with someone I’ll never love half as much. I just want to find my way back to you.” He squeezed her hand. “Let me come back to you. Let me come home.”
She looked in his eyes. “Tom...”
“I got lost,” he said. “I’ve been so lost.”
Cherry let go of his hand. She stood up. Her chair tipped backwards but didn’t fall.
“Cherry?”
Cherry, Cherry, Cherry.
Baby, Baby, Baby.
“I’m getting a box for the pizza,” she said. “We can eat it at home.”
They had to take two cars. Which was awkward.
Tom beat her to the house. He was waiting on the porch for her, holding the pizza box.
He watched her walk up to the door. Stevie was already barking at them.
When Cherry got to the porch, Tom fished his keys out of his pocket. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
She nodded.
“If you kick me out again,” he said, “I’m not leaving.”
Cherry didn’t flinch.
“Not right away,” he added.
She laughed. It made her tearful. “Are you saying that if I kick you out, you’re going to leavereallyslowly?”
Tom smiled at her. But not with his eyes—his eyes were scared. “I’m serious,” he said.
“Okay.”
He pushed his key into the lock.
“Tom, wait—” Cherry put her hand over his wrist. “There was... Iwasseeing someone, and we—”
