Page 23 of The Preacher's Pet

“And get used to being around people again.”

I’m worried this line of questions is going to skirt too close to the subject of why I need to get used to being around people again, and I gently release his hands and tuck mine behind my back.

“You haven’t been around many people?”

I shrug and glance away. “My parents were really protective of me when I came home. They kept me sheltered and…well…it didn’t help.”

I pray he doesn’t ask me where I came home from, but thankfully, he doesn’t.

“Didn’t help in what way?”

I shrug.

“It fed into my belief that the world is a dangerous place.” I can’t look at him, and I change the subject, too nervous to carry on down this path, knowing where it will lead. “Tell me what happened to you after I…left. You definitely don’t look the same.”

He throws me a grin. “I got pumped, right?”

I find myself smiling back. “You certainly did. When you were a kid, I used to be able to almost wrap my fingers around your bicep, you were so skinny.”

His expression darkens. “Yeah, well, being skinny wasn’t exactly working out for me.”

I grimace. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that other people have had tough lives, too. It’s as though my own experiences have eclipsed everyone else’s. For a long time, I struggled to understand my parents’ need to smother me when I returned. In my mind, I was grown already, and had been living without parents for many years, but to them I was still the little girl who’d gotten lost outside an ice cream parlor. They wanted to revel in me being back, but I needed space. Even my own parents could be scary to me if they’d given me too much attention and focus. It felt suffocating and overwhelming. We’d banged heads for a long time, trying figure out how to be around each other. I’m still not sure we know how to treat one another or if we ever will.

“Is your dad still around?” I ask.

“Yeah, he’s still alive, more’s the pity.”

I bite my lower lip. “Things didn’t get any better with him, then?”

“Once a son-of-a-bitch, always a son-of-a-bitch.”

I flinch at the ferocity of his words, and he must notice.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You’ve escaped now, though, right?” I cringe at my own choice of words.

He glances around. “If you can call this an escape. He still pays the bills, which I hate. It won’t be for much longer, though…”

“What do you mean?”

He shakes his head. “Never mind.”

It’s clearly something he doesn’t want to talk about, just like I don’t want to talk about my time in the commune. I guess we both have boundaries.

A silence falls between us.

Cain stares down at his hands in his lap. “I missed you, you know.”

I jerk my head up. “You did?”

“Yeah, every day. I used to go over to your parents’ and ask when you were coming home. I think I went most days. In part, it was to escape my house, but mainly it was because being at your place made me feel close to you. It was like, if I was at your house, you still existed. But one day, your mom lost it with me. She screamed at me that you weren’t coming home. She was crying so hard. And your dad came rushing out, yelling, too. I think he was just being protective of your mom, but it frightened me, and I ran away. I never went back.”

I don’t know what to say. I want to apologize, but I’m not really sure what for. It’s not as if any of what happened was my fault, and I certainly couldn’t control my parents’ reaction. They’d have been grieving, and constantly having the neighbor’skid come over and ask when I was coming home must have pushed my poor mother over the edge.

Cain offers me a half-smile.

“I didn’t stop thinking about you, though. Even after we moved away, I still wondered about you.”

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