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Mitzi frowned. “Well, you never talked to him about his cousin, and then when Mr. Henry got sick…”
“There’s nothing to say. We were never going to work. And I shouldn’t have to explain myself to him any more than I have. I told him what happened—he should have known I would never kiss Asher—and he refused to believe me. Instead, he believed the worst of me. So, whatever this was, it’s over. Period. End of story.”
Mary Paige believed the words she said. Most of them anyway.
She’d spent the past few nights lying awake, staring at the water stain next to the antique chandelier she’d scored for a song at the Goodwill Unique Shoppe, thinking about all that had occurred over the past few weeks…and thinking she needed to go by Ace Hardware and get some white paint to cover the stain.
At one point she’d gotten philosophical and imagined Brennan as that water stain on her heart.
Would she ever be able to cover it up?
Then she’d gotten pissed because she was lying awake, thinking about him again, and making analogies out of old water stains.
So, she’d but on her big-girl panties and stopped thinking about him.
Mostly.
“So that’s it?” Mitzi asked, flopping against the pillows, messing up the bed Mary Paige had made that morning.
“That’s it,” Mary Paige responded, sitting beside her friend. “I went to the Rotary Club’s Yuletide coffee and doughnuts yesterday morning, and as of today, I’m officially finished with the Spirit of Christmas campaign. Hallelujah.”
“I let Robbie Theriot get to second base last night,” Mitzi said.
She eyed her friend. “But you don’t have a second base.”
Mitzi giggled. “I know, so I let him get to third.”
She looked so pleased with herself, the sparkle of the pre-cancer Mitzi evident in her face, that Mary Paige joined in.
“You always know how to make me laugh. So are you going out with him again?”
“Maybe.”
“Why is it so hard to be out there?” Mary Paige muttered. “Dating sucks.”
“Yeah. It does suck.”
At that, they both lay there silent, contemplating life, love, and…the water stain.
“You need to get something to cover that up.” Mitzi pointed to the yellowed amoeba-shaped mark.
“Yeah.”
“And you need to find Brennan and make this all right.”
“No.”
Mitzi rose to her elbow. “Why won’t you go after him?”
“Why won’t he come after me? He was the one who chose to believe that moron’s lies. He’s the one who needs to overcome his past enough to see I wasn’t repeating it. Brennan has the problem. Not me. I was ready to talk about our future…and he shut the door. No, heslammedthe door right in my face.”
“But the situation looked bad. You said so yourself.”
Mary Paige sat up and crossed her arms. “I’m not being stubborn. I’m no longer sitting on my high horse looking down my nose at him and his narrow-minded tendencies. All I’m doing is saying I’m not chasing after that man when he’s jumped to hurtful conclusions about me, when he may have been using me all along. I never gave him any reason to doubt the way I feel about him or to suspect I’d jump into the sack with another man—especially not after leaving his sack the night before. I refuse to chase after a man who has that low opinion of me.”
Mitzi sighed. “But he’s damaged.”
“And it’s up to him to fix himself or at least accept it and fight against it. I wasn’t put on this earth to save Brennan Henry from a joyless, petty life.”
