“I don’t perform for small-town politics,” I say flatly. “Even now, being here, I can’t change that about myself.”
“No,” she snaps, “you posture.”
My jaw tightens. “Posture?”
“You stand there, controlled and stoic and noble, like silence is power.”
“It is.”
“It’s also distance.”
I move closer until the table digs into her hips. “You think this is about distance?”
“I think,” she says, breath hitching but not stepping away, “that you don’t know how to let anyone stand next to you without trying to position them.”
“Position them how?”
“Behind you.”
My hand slams down on the table beside her.
She doesn’t flinch.
That shouldn’t turn me on.
It does.
“You don’t understand the kind of men who look for weakness,” I say quietly.
“And you don’t understand that I’m not one,” she shoots back.
“You’re tying yourself to something that can get ugly.”
“I already tied myself to it,” she says. “Even if staying wasn’t exactly my idea at the time.”
There’s heat in her eyes now.
“You were supposed to pass through,” I say.
She laughs once, sharply. “I was supposed to scatter ashes and disappear. That was the plan. Two weeks. Closure. Goodbye.”
“And?”
“Remember? You didn’t exactly let that happen.”
Silence.
“I painted your walls,” she continues. “I’m planning your events. I defended your name in a gym full of folding chairs and pearl necklaces.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
“You think this bake sale fixes what I was?” I ask.
She steps even closer.
“I think this bake sale shows who you are.”
