Page 123 of The Exit Strategy

I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but she sits in her wicker rocker on her screened in porch, smiling as though she knew I’d come.

She doesn’t even say hello. She simply stares at the empty chair next to her and waits for me to decide.

Eventually I do, and she nods, once, succinctly.

“You look different today,” she says.

Great. She’s heard about Cole’s prowess too.

“I used his shower and he didn’t have conditioner and I’m still wearing his T-shirt under my sweater.”

Now why the fuck did I just blurt all that out? I scowl in her direction. Bea’s mouth twitches. It’s not really a smile. It’s the upper-middle-class equivalent of one though. “That’s not what I meant.”

I grunt in response.

She simply raises a brow because she expects real words.

“I know,” I mumble.

“Do you want to tell me what I meant?”

“No.”

“Okay.” This damn woman just…waits.

I can wait a long freaking time for petty revenge, but this is different. This is loaded and too heavy to hold.

She waits so long that I’ve checked my phone twice, watched a bumblebee knock itself into the window screen three separate times, and counted the rings on Bea’s fingers twice. She has four. Bea’s patient the way ancient trees are patient. I have no way to win this waiting contest.

“Grace got caught,” I blurt. “In a lie. About me.”

“I heard.” I expect her to ask me how I feel about that, but she doesn’t. She simply sits quietly.

“I almost posted a response.” My words are a near whisper as they leave my lips.

“And?”

I shrug. “I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” A small group of butterflies land on her hydrangeas. They’re almost playful. Then I turn my head to study Bea, who is still doing her freaking ancient tree thing, so I drop my gaze to my hands.

“Because I don’t want Cole to know that I…that I enjoy it.”

There it is. My deepest, ugliest truth, and I’m spilling my secrets to a woman who harbors so many I’m surprised her head doesn’t explode.

“You enjoy hurting people?”

“What?” I gasp. “No, I enjoy getting even. Sticking up for myself.”

She hums quietly, like she’s considering my words. “Sticking up for yourself and getting even are two differentthings. One happens in the moment, and one happens with lots of planning and hate.”

“I don’t—I’m not a hateful person.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to be a hateful person,” I amend. “I don’t want to become my mother.”

Now that I’ve said this big, terrible, horrible thing, I wait for the panic to come, but it’s suspiciously absent. Instead, what I’m feeling is…relief, and relief makes me suspicious because it’s not, historically, something I can trust.

“I’m going to ask you something,” Bea says. “And I want you to know that the answer doesn’t have to be for me. You can say it and leave it here and I will never ask about it again, or you can think about it and take it with you.”