“Probably, but I’ve never felt the need to get evaluated.”
She stares blankly at me.
“Oh, you were trying to insult me,” I say. “Well, I don’t consider it an insult. Only someone uneducated would.”
“Maybe you and Nora deserve each other.”
“I hope so.” I hesitate before adding, “I’m the person who’s been texting you. I know all about Bradley Ruche and those two other guys.”
She breaks into a clipped, harsh laugh. “So you’re the one who’s been fucking with my life? You’re doing it for her, I guess.”
I see no reason to deny it.
She sits down and starts removing her bowling shoes. “I probably would have left before it went too much further anyway. He got cold feet about pushing her to sell the place. You know, I wasn’t lying.” She eyes me the way that raccoon was probably checking out Cookie in the woods. “He’s in lovewith her, and if she recruited you to help her get rid of me, she’sdefinitelyin love with him. She used you.”
Anxiety begins spinning funnel clouds inside of me, but I stand still, a statue made of salt capable of crumbling at the slightest touch, and stare her down. “You were trying to use him.”
She gives me a caustic smile. “Everyone uses each other for something. If you don’t realize that, then you’re probably the one getting used.”
My mind is still turning that one over as I watch her grab her things.
“Aren’t you going to wait for José?”
She laughs. “Don’t you get it? I’m not going home with him. I was never going to go home with him.”
I watch her approach the shoe station, wondering if she was right about any of it. Wondering if her departure means this strange chapter of my life has just ended.
Nora and I have been in a fake relationship because she first wanted to placate Pansy, and then to get rid of her. Now that Pansy’s gone, does that mean our arrangement is over too?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NORA
One second, José is pulling me outside, saying he wants us to talk to the Twenty-Seven Flavors guy, and the next, he’s admitting it was a ruse so Pansy could apologize to Cormac.
“I don’t think that’s necessary.” I send an anxious glance at the swinging doors leading inside. Cormac is not a man who enjoys an apology, let alone an insincere one. He’s probably dying in there.
“Yeah, it is. She was acting crazy.” José hesitates, his gaze flicking to the vending machine next to us on the covered porch. It’s completely empty except for two items: breath mints and low-fat popcorn.
I wait, even though I feel a pull to go back inside, and finally he admits, “I’m going to break up with her. It’s been all wrong between us lately. She’s…she’s not who I thought she was. She’s completely changed.”
Those are the words I’ve wanted to hear for over a year, so I’m surprised when I don’t feel an immediate sense of relief. Instead, I’m exhausted.
I search his face, taking in the circles under his eyes. “Are you okay?”
His eyebrows lift to his hairline as he says, “I was expecting an ‘I told you so.’”
“You don’t think very highly of me anymore, do you?” I ask as sadness swells inside of me. “You see me as some shrew who only cares about being right.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I feel the immediate urge to shake it off.
“It’s not like that.” He takes a step forward. I take a step back and nearly fall off the little lip of concrete leading to the door.
“So what’s it like?”
He flexes his hands a couple of times, clearly working through something. “I think we made a mistake breaking up so soon. It could have been something special, the two of us working together. Being together.”
Shock arrests me and leaves me utterly still. “You…you don’t really mean that,” I say, finding my voice. “You’re just saying that because you don’t like seeing me with Cormac.”
