Page 6 of Roped

She swallows again. “In two weeks.”

I frown. “But I thought he said—”

“He wasn’t expecting it,” she says, wringing her hands in her lap. “It came as a surprise. His parole. And he…”

“He what?” I prod when she leaves her sentence hanging.

“He wants to meet me.”

Fuck.

I’ve already established that nothing fazes me. As much as my father scares me, I’m kind of also used to being his bait for business and financial gain. I know a day will come when he’ll up the game of these occasional dates and force me to marry a man of his choosing, all so he can get more land. And I’ll be prepared for that, too, for tying my life to someone I’ll hate with every breath I take, just like I hate my father. I’ve had years of practice to come to terms with my fate. But I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t prepared for my best friend to be in a situation like this: meeting a convicted criminal for the first time after only talking to him via letters for the last six months.

“Of course, I’m not going to,” she hastily adds, snapping her notebook closed and thrusting it away.

“You—”

“I mean,” she cuts me off in agitation. “I’m not going to a café to meet some criminal that I’ve only talked to in letters. I wouldn’t even meet a… I don’t know, a priest that way. Because it’s insane. It’s crazy. It’s the height of recklessness. And I’m not reckless. I’m so far from reckless, it’s not funny.”

She’s right; my best friend is not reckless. She’s the opposite of that: careful, responsible, a rule-follower. Writing to a convicted felon in prison is probably the only thing she’s done that can be called risky.

“How dare he, by the way?” she continues as she gathers her books, straightening the mess. “How dare he ask me that? We had agreed. No, we’d more than agreed; we’d promised. He told me that this would be nothing more than a fantasy. That I was safe with him. Safe to imagine things; tell him things I’ve never told anyone in my life, and I…” She hiccups, gripping the edge of her textbook. “I believed him. I thought he was telling the truth, and now, he’s… I’m not… I don’t…”

I hug her then. I wrap my arms around her tightly and try to calm her down. Which makes me feel utterly useless because what good is a hug when I can’t do more. When I’ve actually done worse. Because I’m the one responsible for this, aren’t I? It’s my fault that Reverie is in this situation. My fault that she started writing letters to a prison inmate in the first place. Because she did that for me. Because I was failing sociology and asked her to help me with my extra-credit grade—which was to interview a prison inmate—and like the most generous friend she is, she agreed. So if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t even be in this position.

“How was your date?” she asks, still hugging me.

“I think we should talk more about you,” I say.

“I don’t want to talk about myself. I’m boring.”

“Boring is good,” I retort softly and more truthfully than she’ll ever know.

“Boring is boring,” she retorts back. “I like your stories better. They’re more fun than mine.”

My heart clenches in my chest and I smile sadly. Then I give her what she asked for, a story. “Well, as soon as he opened his mouth, I realized what a huge mistake I made.”

She chuckles. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

She squeezes her arms around mine. “Why do you go out with these guys?”

My heart twists again and I swallow before I lie, “Because they’re hot. And I still haven’t learned the lesson that hot does not equal interesting. I should just make a pact that I won’t go out with any guy that I meet at the gym.”

She chuckles again. “How’d you get out this time?”

“He went to the restroom and I cut.”

Finally, she laughs and breaks our hug. “You did not.”

I carefully school my expression to appear amused. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was falling asleep on my dinner.”

She watches me a beat, concern etched on her features. “You need to be careful, Pey. Not all men are… good.”

She’s right. She doesn’t even know how right she is.

Actually, scratch that. She does know. She grew up with a man like that, her father. Or rather, her drunk, abusive father. And a mother who was just as terrible. Together, they were a toxic combination, and growing up, all Reverie saw at her house was violence and abuse. It’s no wonder that she grew up to be cautious and careful, the opposite of her parents, wary of men and this world in general.