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It’s a ring.
Stunned, she blinks at it… then her eyes widen as though it’s a gator staring back at her.
She just stares at it. It’s… blinding. White gold, a rock that she could pawn and live off for the rest of her life in this town.
A new engagement ring.New. Not the old money one he would have to pry out of his mother’s cold, dead hands to give to someone like her.
The tears aren’t trapped in her eyes anymore. They spill freely down her already puffy face. She closes her eyes on the glisten of the diamond.
“That’s not meant for me,” she whispers, her voice thick with sobs ready to break free at any moment. “That’s meant for someone like you.”
For a while, he’s still as a statue.
Standing over her, towel fastened at the waist, and his extended hand offering a blue box with a diamond ring winking at her.
He flicks his thumb. And the box claps shut.
Stepping back, a dark look shadows down his face. “Someone like me… Or anyone but you?”
She looks up from her wet lashes. “El… Part of me wants to…”
He tosses the ring aside. It lands on the nightstand with a clatter. “But?”
She watches as he steps back to the armchair beside the gold-framed mirror, and he sinks down into its cushion, as if that’ll soften the blow of the truth he’s about take like bullets.
Still, he’s composed. Legs spread, his hands clasp between them and he leans forward. He’s listening…. waiting.
“I’m not the kinda person to skip town,” she says softly, quiet tears dampening her cheeks. “Some folk are for more. Like you. Made for big cities and those tall buildings and busy streets. But people like me are for here.” She sniffs back snot and uses the back of her skinny hand to wipe at her nose. “That’s why I never visit you up there. I ain’t ever left before. Never even been to Charlotte, forget about the Big Apple. All those tickets you buy me… I don’t take them, do I? I never fly out to see you.”
His hands are gripped tighter now. “Because what, you’re not meant for the city?”
“Yeah. That. And I can’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“I can’t go to the city. It’s too big. It’s too… much. I can’t live in your world, I can’t even survive one of your damn parties here. It’s not real… It’s fantasy to let myself think I can live with you up there, in your world with your people…” She smiles something sad and tight. “I’m just your small-town first love.”
“What you are, Billie, is a pain in my ass.” He threads his fingers through his hair, his face hardening, him fighting to keep on his mask. “And not my first love. You’re myonlylove. Do you think it was easy in my family to date you? Bring you home, buy that fucking ring?” He scoffs, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “Goddamn, Billie. I do everything I can for you and more. I know what you did with Henry, and I love you all the same. It changes nothing. Don’t you get it? I see you. You just don’t see yourself.”
Her voice is a shaky whisper, slick with tears. “What don’t I see?”
“Your strength.” He answers so fast. “The fight you have inside of you. All you need is some help.”
A wry smile quirks her lips. “What kinda help?”
She knows it before he answers, “Rehab.”
Aways trying to fix her. Buy her a new truck, pay for plane tickets, ask to take her shopping, sneak cash in her drawer at the trailer to help her make ends meet. But she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want his money. Because then people like Bunny will be right about her.
Rehab is some serious cash.
Besides, “You can’t change me.”
“You don’t want to stop,” he says with a glance over her shoulder, a glance she can only guess is aimed right at the vodka bottle. “And you won’t leave here. Because… it’s safe, is it?”
She’s quiet, her fingernails scratching off old nail polish.
Somehow, she can’t find it in herself to tell him the God’s honest truth: ‘Yes. It’s safer here. Even now, with a killer on the loose, it still feels safer than it does out there, out in the big world I’ve only ever seen on TV. Because out there with you, you could break my heart—and I’ll have nothing.’
