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But maybe he didn’t like the look of her lips, or she had a pimple, or she simply wasn’t his type. Lord knew Charlie hadn’t seemed to want her. Sure, he had in the beginning, back when she was younger, with more energy. Back when she was successful and she smiled a lot. Back when she’d had hopes and dreams.

Of course, Charlie was the one that had given her a lot of her worries, fears, concerns, and gray hairs.

Not that it was fair to blame anyone else for everything that had gone wrong in her life. She had to take some of the blame on her own shoulders.

“Come out here and talk to me,” he demanded.

She shook her head, but then she realized what a complete wimp she was being. It was so embarrassing. She hated being like this. Why couldn’t she just face up to stuff? Why couldn’t she be more courageous? She bet Ammo wasn’t scared of anything.

So she forced herself to slide up the bed and peek out from under the covers.

Everything she’d said to him tonight was going around and around in her head. What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut? Really? Calling him Silly Willy? It was so stupid. She was so stupid.

“I’m really sorry for the way I behaved tonight, and if you could please forget everything that I’ve said and done, I’d really appreciate it,” she said quickly.

Her head was really starting to feel woozy. It must be the sleeping pill she’d taken.

“I need to get some sleep now. Good night.”

She slid back under the covers. Could she hide here forever? All of a sudden, the covers were ripped off her.

“Hey,” she yelled. “What do you think you’re doing? I need those.”

“Why? So you can hide from me? So you can pretend that none of this happened? So you can lie under the covers and go over and over everything in your mind until you feel sick?”

“How did you know that was my plan?” she asked suspiciously.

“It was a good guess. Also that’s not happening.”

“Well, not unless you give me back my covers,” she said.

“You’re not getting back your covers until you listen to me, until you promise me that you’re not going to stress or worry over this.”

“Of course I’m not going to stress or worry over this. Why would I stress or worry over this? I stress or worry over nothing. I am completely relaxed all the time. Nothing concerns me.”

Man, sometimes it was a surprise to her how much of a big fat liar she was.

“Really? You have a thinking spot on the roof of your house that you go to in order to think about stuff, but nothing concerns you?”

Drat, her lies were catching up with her. “Give me my blankets.”

“No. No going under the covers until you talk to me.”

“Talking sucks. Are you sure you want to talk?” she asked. “You’re not usually such a talker. Can’t we just pretend none of this ever happened? We’ll look at each other occasionally, and there’ll be an awkward silence, and then we’ll just change the topic to more important things. Like what will they make grapes taste of next? I mean, grapes really are a versatile fruit. You can turn them into wine, you can make them sweet, you can make them sour, you can make them taste like cotton candy or candy snap, which kind of sounds like it should be the same flavor to me. They really are an underrated fruit.”

He sighed. “I did not expect to be talking about grapes at eleven at night.”

“And yet here we are. You know, you are free to just leave. You don’t have to stay here and talk to me about grapes.”

“We’re not going to talk about grapes. We’re going to talk about you and the question you just asked me.”

“Oh, goody. Just what I wanted, to have an awkward conversation with you. It’s like all we have are awkward conversations.”

“Yes, well, you’re not the one with the nickname Silly Willy, are you?” he grumbled.

She shouldn’t smile. She really shouldn’t, but her lips twitched.

He pointed at her. “Don’t you dare smile.”