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“No. It was for mine.” This level of honesty wasn’t easy. I had to admit that. It was fucking difficult baring your soul for someone else to see. “Can I ask you something?” I questioned.
She gave a quick jerk of her head that might have been a nod. “Sure.”
I reached over and gently lifted the single strand of pearls she always wore. “Where did you get these?” She wore them all the time. They must be important to her.
“They’re a placeholder,” she said with another wince. “Or at least that’s what my grandmother, my Nana, said.”
“A placeholder.”
She nodded. “She gave them to me on my eighteenth birthday. She told me that I should wear them until someone who loves me replaces them, so I know that I am loved.” She shook her head. “But Nana’s love isn’t real love. Not really.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well,” she said, and she stopped, like she was gathering her thoughts. “The day that Lynn and Mason got married, Mason gave her a blue topaz necklace that matched her eyes perfectly. It was beautiful. It was like a physical embodiment of love, every time I saw it. It meant that he loved her and he knew her well enough to buy her the perfect piece of jewelry.” She made a snorting noise in her throat. “It took me a while to figure out that’s what it meant.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I used to beg Lynn to let me wear it. She was resistant at first, but eventually, she let me borrow it. And I loved wearing that necklace, because when I wore it, I believed in the kind of love they had.” She shook her head. “Looking back, it was really stupid.”
“Why was it stupid?”
“Because, eventually, Lynn explained what it meant to her and then I felt like a dumbass. I gave it back right away. It wasn’t my place to wear it. There I was, just wanted to wear a pretty necklace, and there she was, wanting to wear this perfect symbol of their love for one another. The two didn’t compare, but it took me a while to understand it. I used to wear that thing all the time. After what happened with our father, Lynn was grateful, so she gave it to me. It was like she gave me the moon and the stars. But it wasn’t my moon and stars. It was hers.” She laughed. “I feel like I’m talking in riddles. You probably have no idea what I mean.”
“No, I think I understand it. You saw a pretty bauble, not realizing it was a declaration of his love for her, that it meant so much more to her than it ever would to you.”
She looked up at me. “How do you do that?” she asked, her eyes skimming my face.
“Do what?”
“How do you give voice to the thoughts in my head? No one has ever been able to do that before.”
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t know. I didn’t understand it either. “So, you gave the necklace back to Lynn.”
“Yes, I returned it, once I realized what it symbolized for them. It wasn’t right for me to wear it. It was theirs. It wasn’t mine.”
I lifted my hand and fingered the pearl necklace. “So this is a placeholder, your grandmother said.”
“Yes. Something to be replaced later on.”
“I like it. It suits you.”
She lifted her graceful fingers and rolled the pearls between the pad of her forefinger and thumb. “What about it suits me?”
“It’s classy. Like you.”
She snorted again, and it was the cutest noise I’d ever heard. “Have you met me? I am not classy.”
“Just because you can shoot and fight doesn’t mean you’re not classy.”
“My Nana says classy ladies don’t curse.”
“Your Nana is wrong.”
She coughed into her fist. “Anyway,” she said, drawing the word out slowly.
“So tomorrow is Friday,” I said.
She nodded. “It is.”
