"You really care that much about what people think?"
This time, she looked slightly irritated at the way I was talking to her, and I realized how it must have sounded.
"People assume things," she replied. "And people would assume things if they saw us going out to dinner again. And I don’t want to deal with that. That’s all there is to it."
"I’m sorry," I sighed, rubbing my hand over my face, coffee forgotten on the table in front of me. "I didn’t mean to put it like that. I’m not saying that I don’t get it, I just hoped that you would have a chance to get to know me for me before you found out where I came from."
She planted her hands on the table, and offered me an apologetic look.
"I’m sorry too," she confessed. "I had a lot of fun the other night, but...I meant what I said. And besides, you’re going to be moving on to your next adventure soon enough, right? No point getting tied down here."
She smiled as she said it, but there was a note of sadness to her voice. For a crazy moment, I thought about offering to take her with me, but I doubted that would do much to salve the uncertainty in her mind right now.
"I get it," I replied, and I looked down at her hand, splayed on the counter before me, just a few inches from my own. It would be so easy to reach out and touch her, and, for a second, I thought about doing just that. But it would only make it harder to turn around and walk out of here, and that’s what I knew I needed to do.
"See you, Dina," I told her, and I got to my feet and headed towards the door before I could try and come up with yet another reason to stick around just a little while longer. I heard her say goodbye behind me, but I didn’t turn to check, not wanting to break my stride until I got out into the cool evening air.
I stared up at the moon above me for a moment, the waterfall thundering in the distance. I almost wanted to go up there rightnow, head down so that I could blot out the rush of thoughts running through my head.
But it wouldn’t do any good. Once again, my family name had defined me. I didn’t know why I kept fooling myself into thinking it wouldn’t happen. Everywhere I went, it was like my family was right behind me. Didn’t matter where I travelled, which was the first thing I had done when I had gotten my inheritance; I loved my family, but I felt like I was going to be crushed under the weight of all they expected from me, and I needed to figure out life on my own before I came to terms with what it meant to be one of them.
Because it had been so damn easy for my brothers. Harry and James, they had stepped into my father’s shoes as soon as they had gotten the chance; gone to business school, got their degrees, followed him into the industry to bring the company to new heights. And that was what they had thought I would do, too, but the idea of just doing the exact same thing as all of them, giving up so much of what I thought made me me, it didn’t sit right with me.
When you came from a family with money, people treated you a certain way. Expected a certain kind of thing from you. But I just wanted to be approached like anyone else, not like I had to be handled with kid gloves; not like I might be the miracle worker who funded whatever project they had in mind, or someone they could schmooze for cash or luxury. Sure, I got why those things appealed to people, but there was more to life than that. As lucky as I knew I was to have those things to fall back on, sometimes, they felt like they were holding me back.
And as silly as I knew it was to let myself get into such a mess over the fact that Dina didn’t want to see me anymore, I had really felt something for her. It felt like something deeper than the short, temporary romances I’d stumbled into on theroad before. Even in a small place like Whisper Falls, she felt impossibly bright, a spark I couldn’t quite get out of my head.
Well, guess I was going to have to figure out a way to make it happen. The comments she had made about money played in my mind, and I wondered if there was something I could do to ease that burden from her, at least. Show her that I was grateful for her company and being honest with me, even if she didn’t want to see me again. And, as I began the walk back towards the Linden hotel, I breathed in a deep lungful of the cool air, the sky darkening to blackness above me.
Chapter 4
Dina
"Well, I think that’s everything," Mom sighed, as she planted the last of the groceries on the conveyer belt. "Let me just get my coupons, Mary..."
She reached into her bag and began to fish around, and I smiled at the cashier, grateful for her patience. We always made sure to come to the Mill & Harvest Grocery Store at the quieter parts of the day, to make sure that we wouldn’t be holding too many people up as Mom went through all the vouchers she had carefully clipped out of magazines since the last time she had been here.
These grocery trips had always been a fraught time for us as a family, as silly as it might have sounded to say. With how reckless my father had been with money, throwing whatever cash he had into investments so stupid they might as well have counted as gambling, it had always been a fifty-fifty chance that the credit card would go through, and we’d have enough food for the following week. Even though it had been years since Momhad finally given up and kicked him out of the house, and we had found our way back to some kind of financial stability, she always tried to make sure she got the best deal possible, and I didn’t blame her.
She handed the coupons over to Mary, who looked down at them in surprise. I raised my eyebrows.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, it’s fine," she replied, as she handed them back to me. "But you don’t need any coupons for today. It’s already paid for."
I stared at her for a moment, then looked to Mom, wondering if she might have known something of this. But she looked just as confused as I felt.
"Sorry, Mary, I’m not sure what you mean," I asked. Another customer entered, and I glanced up to see Fiona, the deputy mayor, wandering through. She lifted a hand and smiled at me, and I returned it, though I hoped she didn’t overhear whatever strange confusion was going on this side of the cash desk.
"There was a man who came in earlier, said that he wanted to pay up your account," she explained, and she rummaged in the drawer, pulling out an envelope. "Left a few hundred dollars to cover your next few visits, as well. Sorry, I thought he was someone you knew, and you were just dropping the money off in advance for some reason..."
My mother spluttered in surprise, but I had a feeling that I knew exactly who would have done something like this. It had been a couple of days since Felix had come by the diner to try and talk to me, when I told him in no uncertain terms that things wouldn’t work between us, because of our different backgrounds. And I guessed I might have mentioned that money was kind of an issue for me, and he must have thought this was some way of...well, what?
"You’re sure that they left it on our account?" Mom asked, taking a step forward.
"Yeah, you can take a look at the receipt if you want," Mary replied, holding it out to her. Mom looked down at it, squinting at the scribbled note, and then peered at me.
"Dina? Do you know anything about this?”
