Page 38 of The Summer I Destroyed You

I wave a hand at it. “It was nothing. He implied he might have spat in my food. But we had words the last time I was in here so, as I’m sure you can imagine, I wasn’t entirely innocent in the whole thing.”

His jaw grinds. “That’s still fucking unacceptable.”

An older woman behind the counter says something to Paul and then walks over to us. “Hey, Liam,” she says, “is there a problem?”

Before I can answer, Liam does.

“Jeannie, this is Emerson. Paul just implied he might have spat in her food. He’s completely out of control.”

The woman looks from Liam to me, and her eyes fill. “My son…” she whispers, “he’s got issues. Anger issues. His wife left him—took their daughter. He can’t even figure out where she is now. I think he’s drinking again. But I’m so sorry he just said that.”

Ugh. I can’t believe I’m about to defend Paul Bellamy. “It’s okay. We went to school together and he wasn’t especially nice to me, so I said something shitty the last time I was here.”

She shakes her head. “I’m sorry about high school too. We had our share of misfortunes then as well.”

I want to argue that Paul couldn’t possibly have had misfortunes to rival my own, but what do I know? I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, thinking losing my dad and being bullied were the greatest pains you could suffer. But there are probably a whole lot of people who’d trade my pain for theirs.

I guess some of the people who once hurt me might be among them.

“The second you hold your child in your arms, it’s like your heart is outside of you,” she tells me. “Out in the open, ready to be crushed. And children will. Even if they make you happier than you ever dreamed you could be, at some point they will break your heart.”

To her, he’s still the same gentle, round-faced little boy she once sang to sleep. Paul was lucky to have someone like that. And as badly as I want to hurt him, I’m not sure I want to hurt her in the process.

Getting to know the residents of Elliott Springs, as it turns out, makes destroying them less fun than I’d hoped.

* * *

My mother’s physical therapy appointments are so brief that there’s no point in leaving. I sit in the waiting room preparing for this afternoon’s call with Charles, knowing he’ll attempt to find one thing I haven’t done simply so he can remind me to do it.

Several texts arrive from Donovan. I ignore them, the way I’ve been ignoring his calls. He has convinced himself that this fling of ours meant something, and though I suspect his dumb crush has very little to do with me, when I picture Liam’s dimpled grin, I feel just the tiniest sympathy for Donovan. I think I might have a dumb crush of my own.

“Emerson,” says a voice.

I look up and find Dr. Sossaman poking his head around the corner. “Do you have a minute?” he asks.

Great. What has she complained about now? If this keeps up, I’m going to start wearing a body camera to prove my innocence. But if this keeps up, I shouldn’t wear a camera of any sort because I’m probably going to commit a crime.

“Sure,” I say warily, following him to his office.

“Your mother just went down the hall to PT and I wanted to clear the air,” he says, sitting behind his desk. “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot last time.”

“You mean when you implied that I was abusing my mom? Oh, and that I’m an unemployed freeloader?”

“I wasn’t trying to imply either of those things,” he argues.

“Weren’t you?” I ask. “Because it sure seemed like it when you scolded me about letting her do too much and suggested the situation was to my benefit.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. “I was just going off what she told me. She said that you didn’t appear to work much and that she was ashamed of what you did when you were working.”

I laugh ruefully. “So you thought I was a sex worker, apparently. To be perfectly clear, I’m in property development. My mom just thinks that the only acceptable jobs are doctor, lawyer, and whatever my brother does.”

“I’m glad I made the cut,” he says with a sheepish grin. “If it’s any consolation, my mom thinks the only acceptable type of doctor is a neurosurgeon, so I’m in the same boat.”

“Yeah, but does she go around implying to her friends that you’re a prostitute instead?”

He leans back in his chair. “Well, no. Possibly because no one would believe I’d make a successful male prostitute.”

I laugh. He’s sort of cool after all. “This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had with a doctor,” I tell him as I rise.

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