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“Excuse me?”
“I've seen the ads you've done for beauty brands, all those bullshit perfume and makeup commercials, dressed in swimsuits with your hip bones sharp enough to grate cheese. It's the pot calling the fucking kettle black.”
Thea recoils, curling her legs into her body and turning away from me to stare furiously out the window. “You don't know what you're talking about.”
“Yeah? Tell me I'm wrong, then, princess. You don't think you've got kids looking up to you? Little girls reading those magazines and wishing that their waists are as small as yours, wondering why they can’t see their ribs like you can? You're fucking crazy if you think they don't see those pictures of you, then go and refuse to eat dinner that same night. Look at you. You're a walking commercial for eating disorders.”
“God, you're such an asshole.” Her words are harsh but lack the severity she undoubtedly intended. Because where her voice should be sharp and biting, it's thick with something entirely different. A pain buried deep that I wasn't expecting at all. “You think I don't know that?”
I shrug, staring out at the stretch of darkness ahead of us. The conversation has gotten to me and I don't know why. Protectiveness over my sister, I expect. But despite the anger simmering away inside of me, the sound of sniffling from the passenger side has me holding my tongue.
“Everyone's always trying to put me in a fucking box.”
The unexpectedness of her curse takes me back. “What?”
“I have to be perfect but relatable. Sexy but not provocative. Have a voice worth listening to while always knowing my place. Worst of all, a guiding light for the next damn generation of women, all while making myself vomit in the bathroom after dinner just so I can fit into my size zero costume at work the next day.”
I don't know what to say, so I just keep driving silently through the country roads toward town, waiting for her to go on.
“I never asked for any of this, you know?” She sniffs, and like an arrow to the heart, I realize she's crying. “I just wanted to do what I loved and maybe make a living from it. Despite what everyone in this town seems to think, I didn't give a shit about any of the fame or stuff that comes along with it. I just wanted to see myself in the movies like the ones I used to watch with Doris Day, remember?”
I remember.
She'd force me to watch those black-and-white movies on the old TV back at the farm. I can't even count how many times now I've seenCalamity Jane. But despite how I always put up a fuss, I never really minded. Because she'd sit with her legs crossed, back ramrod straight, and a handful of popcorn paused halfway to her mouth as she stared at the tiny screen with stars in her eyes. And I'd just sit there watching her watch the movie and dreaming big dreams.
“I can't keep trying to force myself into those boxes,” she says finally, her words barely more than a whisper. “It's exhausting.”
“Then don't.”
“Ha,” she snaps a sarcastic laugh. “You say it like it's the easiest thing in the world.”
“Isn't it?”
“No.” She grips the door handle, and even though I'm the one who's been driving, it's only now that I realize we've pulled up outside her house. “But don't worry, Cole, I wouldn't expect you to get it. I know what you think of me. You've made your hatred clear enough.”
And then she's slipping my jacket into the footwell of the car, opening the door and climbing out into the frigid night air.
“I've never hated you, Thea.”
But she's gone too fast to hear me. So, I wait until I see the front door close behind her before driving back to my place and digging the warmest coat I own out of my closet. It's way too big for her and smells of old must and stale tobacco, but at least it will stop her from catching hypothermia.
Then, I drive all the way back across town to leave it wrapped in brown paper on her porch for her to find in the morning.
The next afternoon,I muster up the courage to send Leighton a text that ultimately leads to us meeting at a coffee shop in town. Sadie's Place, according to the hand-painted name plate above the store front.
“I've never been in here before,” I say aloud, more to myself than anyone, looking round at the upcycled wooden benches and ceramic plant pots that are displayed in lines across the exposed red-brick walls.
We're sitting at a table by the large frost-covered window, our hands wrapped around two mugs of hot chocolate, each with a serving of whipped cream big enough to give me diabetes. Leighton ordered before I arrived with the excuse that Sadie's hot chocolates are the best in the state. She plays a convincing role, but I'll place my bets that either Cole or Mama Belle ordered her to try and get some more fat on my bones. Both suspects are uncomfortably interested in my weight.
At the thought of the former, I find myself leaning back into the warmth of the coat that's hanging from the back of my chair. Cole's coat. I know because it smells just like him, all smoky and woodsy and familiar. The asshole left it on my porch for me to find this morning.
God, it's so much harder to hate him when he's sweet.
“You know the owner.” Leighton drops a fourth sugar cube into her latte and stirs. “Sadie, last name was Rausenberger before she married Clay. They've been childhood fucking sweethearts since they were, like, fourteen. Y'all were kinda close once. You can't have forgotten her.”
“No, no, I remember.”
“Good. Well, she and Clay set this place up together a couple years ago, but it's more her gig than his. He was supposed to be taking over up at the farm, but...” she trails off, “you know.”
