Her hand lifted.
The ring flashed.
“But I was never your home, was I?”
My chest hurt so badly I almost wished the bullet had finished the job.
“You were good to me,” I said.
She stared.
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“What was I?”
The question was worse than did you love me.
Because the answer had too many pieces.
Georgia was warmth. Clean life. Study dates. Sunday dinners. A father who trusted me with a grill and a loose cabinet hinge. A mother who hugged me like I had not walked in carrying club violence under my skin. Georgia was proof, or I had tried to make her proof, that I could become a man who did not belong to the worst parts of his past.
She was not a lie.
But I had lied around her.
“You were someone I wanted to deserve,” I said.
Her face crumpled.
“No,” she whispered. “No, don’t make it beautiful.”
“It’s not beautiful.”
“It sounds beautiful when you say it like that. It sounds like I should be honored you tried.” She shook her head hard. “I don’t want to be the woman you wanted to deserve. I wanted to be the woman you wanted.”
I had no defense.
None.
The truth filled the silence, ugly and complete.
Georgia looked toward the door again. “Do you want her?”
My mouth went dry.
“Yes.”
She breathed in like I had struck her.
“And me?”
“I love you.”
Her eyes flashed.
I forced myself to keep going before the coward in me grabbed the softer lie.
