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“What if I don’t feel like telling you?”
“Then say that. How’s it going, Caroline? None of your fucking business, West. See how that works? It’s easy. ”
For a minute she’s quiet, and I have a chance to appreciate what an asshole I am. I’ve got no right to be this way with her. I don’t know why I always want to be—to push at her, peel her apart, find out what’s underneath—but I do.
That’s the thing about Caroline. I want to strip her naked, and then I want to keep going. I want to learn what makes her tick. Not even want—I need to.
I need something from her, and that’s what I have to guard against. The most dangerous thing about her. Because if I need her, she’ll hurt me, distract me, maybe even break me into pieces and grind them under her heel. I’ve seen it happen with my mom.
And it’s not like I’m so dumb that I think love does that to everyone. Bo, Mom’s boyfriend now, he loves her, but he doesn’t love her that way—like a typhoon, a fucking tsunami knocking his feet out from under him. I know there’s love in the world that’s take-it-or-leave it, easygoing, slow and steady.
But that’s not what I feel around Caroline.
She could knock me on my ass so hard.
It’s not what I’m in Iowa for.
She exhales, a long whoosh of air. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. ” And then, after another pause, “Ask me again. ”
“How’s it going?”
“Terrible. ” She looks at the floor. “Every day,” she whispers. “Every single day is the worst day of my life. ”
I flour the table in front of me, preparing to shape the loaves.
Bread practically makes itself, if you do it right. You just have to quit fighting it.
Caroline watches my hands. The way my fingers shape and pinch, set the bread on a tray to rise—I have a way of making not fighting it look like fighting it. I guess I’ve been digging my heels in so long, it’s hard to remember there’s another way to do things.
Author: Robin York
I don’t think I was ever like Caroline, though. Never privileged like her, confident of my place in the world, thinking the future was some gilded egg I could pluck out of the nest and take home. I’ve always known the world isn’t fine, that it’s broken, that it fails you when you least expect it to.
When you know that, it’s easier to take the blows. Automatic to fight back.
“I can’t make it go away,” she says softly. “Not by myself. Not without …”
“Not without what?”
Her nose wrinkles. “Telling my dad. ”
“What can he do that you can’t?”
“Lots of things, potentially. But mainly there’s this company you can hire to scrub your name online. Push the bad results down in the search engines. But it’s expensive. ”
“Ah. ”
“Yeah. ”
“That sucks. ”
“It does. ”
“So what else is new?”
She blinks at me, obviously not expecting the change of subject. “Not much,” she says.
“Huh. ” I push some dough in her direction. “You want to try this?”
