Page 38 of The Hometown Legend

“Lydia said you weren’t responding to her.”

“And you didn’t think that might be by design?”

“I wanted to see how you were. I was worried.”

“You were worried.”

“Well, Lydia was worried and...”

“I hadn’t even seen my sister or my mother for two years before yesterday. I’ve been managing all that time, and they can’t get in touch for a little bit and they’re worried?”

“Something is wrong, Gideon. Obviously.”

“Yeah. Something is wrong. I... I’m this.”

“What does that mean?”

“Fucking hell, Rory.”

“Is it PTSD?”

He looked at her like she was stupid. “Yeah. I suspect there’s some PTSD,” he said.

“Well, don’t be an asshole about it,” she said.

He drew back, and she was shocked at the words that had just come out of her mouth. She felt an unfamiliar fire light in her gut. This was not why she had come. She had come to say something inspirational. She hadn’t come to get mad. But he was being...impossible. Like a hedgehog that had curled in on himself and turned out all his spikes. He was here. So he must want people to reach him, and then he was acting aggrieved when they tried. It wasn’t fair.

“Why did you come here if you don’t want the town to throw you a parade? Why did you come here if you’re just going to ignore your mother and your sister?” she asked.

“You’re not my friend, Rory. You’re Lydia’s. I don’t owe you an explanation for anything.”

“That’s...that’s not fair. You act like you didn’t even know who I was when I came up to the door, but you do. You know that...you were important to me, Gideon. We talked every day on the way to school. You can’t say that we weren’t friends.”

“Yes, I can. I didn’t give much of a thought to my little sister’s friend after I left town.”

His words lanced her chest, because they confirmed all the things that she thought about herself. That she was unmemorable. And she just wanted... She wanted to fight back against that, and he wasn’t supposed to be the one she was fighting. She was supposed to be trying to help. But he was tangled in this. In this endeavor that she was in.

And she felt like fighting. Not crumbling. Like she had done when they had passed out the pages of her diary. Like she had done when those guys had spilled beer on her and made fun of her. She had crumbled. She wasn’t going to crumble anymore.

It was the Summer of Rory. And Gideon Payne didn’t get to make her feel small just because once upon a time he had been her savior.

“Is this what you came here for? To alienate people who love you? Because that seems pretty stupid. It seems to me that—”

“Why do you think you know anything about my life? Where were you when I got injured? Did you call the hospital? Send flowers? Did you come and sit by my bedside?”

The words took her back. Because no. She hadn’t. She had been shocked, she had been upset and wounded. She had been sorry that he was hurt.

But she...

You were hurt that he got married. You didn’t want to be connected to him anymore. You didn’t want to want something you couldn’t have. You didn’t want to be found lacking again.

She hadn’t been brave enough then.

“I didn’t,” she said. Her voice was thin, her throat aching. “Did you want me to?”

He growled. “I just want to be left alone right now.”

“As far as I can tell, you’ve been alone, Gideon.”

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