Page 12 of Five Stolen Rings

“She’s back,” Benny says, still breathing hard. “Don’t know what happened. But she’s been working over at the market. Living in her parents’ basement, I think.”

Interesting.

“How sure are you?”

“Saw her at the store, heard the rest from her mom while checking out.” There’s aglug-glug-glugsound—Benny chugging water, I think—and then he speaks again. “You still obsessed with this girl?”

“I’ve never beenobsessedwith her,” I say through gritted teeth. “I just liked her for a while. She’s a pain in my side.” Guys like me and girls like Stella—womenlike Stella—don’t mix. I’ve always known that.

Benny snorts. “Whatever you say, man.”

I would protest more, but it only makes me look guilty, so I don’t.

“All right, thanks,” I say instead.

“Yep. Later.”

“Later.”

And then we hang up, and I let the phone drop to the bed beside my head. My last thought before I plunge into sleep is that I’ll have to go back to Maude’s again tonight—not so early this time.

STELLA

Aside from being thoroughly rattled at the appearance of Jack Piorra—the boy who was once my best friend—I’m also concerned about his wording when he saidTell me what happened to your shiny architect job, and maybe I’ll leave for the night.

It’s thefor the nightthat has me extra worried. Because that makes it sound like he’s planning to come back another time.

Which is obviously unacceptable, on account of my responsibility to keep the house safe and then get paid for it.

I cross my legs on my bed, trying to focus on my morning breathing exercise—in for six, hold for six, out for eight—but my breaths keep taking on rhythms of their own, snippets of heated conversation from last night still floating in my memory.

We weren’t always this rude to each other. He didn’talways view me with such disdain. But what he said was true: there was a time when I was a snob.

I’ve changed—been beaten down by life, made aware of my excessive fallibility, given up on trying to fit in—but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know that I’m no longer the girl I was in high school.

Has he changed too?

I sigh, abandoning my breathing exercises and flopping back on the bed.

I’m not sure I want to find out.

“Stop thinking about him,” I tell myself. “He stopped thinking aboutyouyears ago.” The space heater in the corner of my room gives a little shudder, like it thinks I’m weird for talking to myself. I ignore it, because it’s a space heater, and it doesn’t get to have an opinion.

It stays quiet as I trudge around my little basement unit getting ready for the day, though. I feel like I’m moving through molasses this morning, and I can only blame part of that on my trouble sleeping last night. Because I know the real cause: the crumbs of disappointment and shame digesting themselves in the pit of my stomach, leftovers from what I said to Jack, soaked in the memory of the things he said to me.

It’s a gross feeling, recognizing that you’ve behaved badly and wishing you could change it, knowing you can’t. I work at my parents’ market for half the day, and that sensation churns heavily inside of me, disturbing me more and more despite everything I do to stay busy.

Easily the most distracting thing that happens is a call from Maude Ellery herself, early afternoon, asking if I’d be interested in an extra hundred dollars.

“Of course,” I tell her, pacing back and forth in the break room.

She then proceeds to tell me that in a storage closet upstairs in her house are several boxes of Christmas decorations she’d like me to put up. I agree immediately.

I will put up Christmas decorations. I would putonChristmas decorations for more pay; I would dress up like Santa Claus and boogie with all four parakeets if it meant I could build up my savings a little faster.

Like I said, I love my parents. I’m beyond grateful for their help. But I need to stand on my own two feet.

And how, exactly, are you going to do that?my mind whispers, and it’s a question I don’t have an answer for.

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