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“I’m just not sure I understand why.”
“I don’t think I know.”
“And I think you do.” I could see the wheels in her brain turning, but I let her off that hook to put her on another. “Have you fucked around?”
Right on cue, the CO got on his bullhorn. “Start wrapping up.”
I’d heard the same question asked in here before by other inmates. There were stories, lots of them, about men accusing their girls of awful things.
Tiffany didn’t react, which wasn’t typical from what I’d seen or been told. “No,” she said simply.
I wanted to believe her, but it seemed unlikely. I looked her in the eye. “I’d understand if you had, just tell me the truth. If I come out of here with you, it’s a clean slate for us.”
“I don’t want a clean slate,” she said. “You were good to me. I don’t want to wipe that away. I haven’t been with anyone else.”
“But you could’ve been.”
“Of course.” She adjusted the sleeve of her dress. “I thought about it lots of times. I’ve had opportunities.”
“I know you have.”
“I guess you won’t believe me, but I’m not a cheater. I think it’s really low.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“Maybe you think I’m, you know, slutty.” She said it without flinching, straight up. “And, okay, I’ve been with some guys before you, but that doesn’t make me a liar.”
Well, she’d put me in my place, and she was right. “Okay, then tell me what you were thinking about just before this. Why me?”
Again, her eyes shifted, went a little distant. She was avoiding answering, like it was hard for her to say. “Look,” she said. “I’m not proud of it, but at the courthouse, when Dexter gave me that bag of your things, the keys to your place and your truck, I was pissed. I didn’t understand why, of all people, you thought I would know what to do with it. But the real reason I got mad was because I was scared. Nobody had ever just . . . trusted me that much. Your life was in that bag. I didn’t know where to start. I was sure I’d fuck it up.”
I could’ve hugged her right then. It might’ve been the most honest thing I’d ever heard her say. She was scared. Did she think she was alone in that? All of us were just doing our best. “You didn’t,” I said. “You came through.”
“I wanted to give it all to my dad to take care of. He’s good at that kind of stuff. He probably would’ve gotten you out of the lease altogether.” She spread her hands on the table as if she were inspecting her nail polish. I could see her thinking, though. “But then I remembered how good you’d been to me that night we had spaghetti at camp. You’d arranged that nice dinner for me, and you made me feel, I don’t know . . . like I mattered to you. So even though I wanted to walk away, I decided to figure it out.”
That night at camp felt like a lifetime ago. It made me think of Bucky, and how I’d wanted to wring that bastard’s throat, even back then. Tiffany put on a good show, but I’d pretty much had her number from day one. If I’d been the first man to make her feel special for who she really was, then maybe it wasn’t so farfetched that she was still sitting here.
That didn’t mean she didn’t deserve to be warned about what she’d be getting into with me. If anything, I owed her that.
The family at the table next to us stood and hugged. Time was up. “I’m not the same person I was back then.”
“Yes, you are.”
I wasn’t. I’d seen more. I knew more. None of it good. Moving in with Tiffany would mean relying on her. Trusting her. I hadn’t done that since I’d left my aunt’s at eighteen. I had to know Tiffany wasn’t going to scare easily. “You know what I thought about when I was alone too long?”
“What?” she asked.
“Fucking. Not in a nice way.” I paused to check her reaction. She went a little pink but didn’t back down. “I come out of here, I’m not going to be able play Country Club Man like your dad. I’m not going to golf, and brunch, and go sailing or whatever the fuck it is your friends do. It’s going to be hard. I’m doing what I have to do for the basics—shelter, food, work.”
She nodded. “I can help.”
“I’m giving you an out.” I’d had nothing before this, but at least I’d had a future. Now all I had was a past and a record. “You should take it.”
“The more you tell me to, the less I want to.”
Sounded about right. Tiffany looked hopeful. Maybe even happy. She was sitting here because of how I’d made her feel one night thirteen months ago. She’d done all right for herself since then, too, so she could be the girl I expected her to be. I hadn’t done much right lately, but this—this felt good. Tiffany had been pretty lost when I’d met her, and now, she was making an effort. I’d helped someone, and after feeling as though my presence had made things worse for a lot of people, it made me want to keep trying. To get out of here. I could no longer join the police force and improve people’s lives like I’d wanted to, but Tiffany, at least, I could help.
