Page 72 of The Cadence
“Exactly,” I agreed. “It means you’re accomplishing something.”
“Good.” He leaned back, away from me, and smiled. I could see that expression very clearly, now that his beard was gone. “I’m glad you like the idea of Miss Mozella stepping in with my mom.”
“I do,” I agreed. “Why didn’t you tell me before, though?”
He looked at me and I suddenly felt like there was more distance between us, even if our bodies hadn’t moved.
“You don’t have an obligation to share every detail,” I added. “It just seems a little funny since I know them both.”
“I’ve usually acted on my own,” Will said.
“Like how you used to want to be alone to think about things and work out a problem.”
“Yes, and then I would try to come up with solutions alone, too. I could have talked to you first. I should have.” He paused. “I also wonder how much I should tell you, if it matters anymore.”
“What does that mean? Tell me about what?”
“Miss Mozella knows, because she’s mentioned it to me,” he went on, and I still had no idea what he meant. “I don’t want to have secrets from you. That’s another problem I’ve been thinking about.” He paused. “I had offered money.”
“What?”
“I had offered to give your grandma money. Not as a loan but as a gift. I said that I could set up a monthly payment if she wanted, or I could have handed over a lump sum. She said no and she was offended, like I was trying to pay for her silence or pay her to soothe my own conscience.”
“What?” I asked again. “She said no?”
“The last time I saw her in person, she was very angry at me, and I don’t think she ever got over it.”
That last time had been the day of his graduation, when he’d driven me home so late and I’d shown up at her house in different clothes—his—because I’d gotten soaked in the shower and then messy as I’d cleaned. I remembered getting out of his car and hitching up the giant sweatpants as my grandmother stood and watched, looking horrified under the yellow glow of her porch light.
“What did he do to you?” she’d asked, her voice breaking, and nothing that either of us had said was sufficient to ease her mind. She had finally accepted that Will’s mother had overdosed and nearly died instead of watching her son graduate from high school, but she had been furious at him for bringing me into that situation and furious with me for being crazy enough about him that I’d gone along with it. She’d told him that he wasn’t allowed to talk to me, not ever again.
“No, ma’am, I won’t,” he’d promised. “Goodbye, Calla.” I had gone inside to cry and I’d been furious with her for a while, but she hadn’t relented. When I’d finally realized that she was actingout of love for me, I had let go of the anger because I’d needed that love so much.
“She was always worried,” I explained. “She was afraid that my life would end up somewhere bad, like her son’s had.”
“And she believed that I was the vehicle to take you there. I don’t blame her,” he said quickly. “She spent her life hearing about the Bodines, and I was the fruit of that poisonous tree.”
“But she knew you,” I told him. “She knew how you had been coming over to help me and to help her, too. You tore down that old fence in the back yard, you—”
“Nothing I did mattered compared to you,” Will broke in. “You were the most important thing to her, and she thought that I was threatening your welfare and your happiness. Of course she didn’t like me, but I wish she’d taken my money anyway.”
“We could have used it.”
“When I found out that she had lost her house and that you had nowhere to go, I almost went out of my mind. I should have been there, physically, and then I could have…I don’t know what I could have done, but there was something.”
“You don’t owe me,” I repeated. “No matter what I did that day for your mother, you never owed me for it.” I remembered him saying it, though, the same words over and over as he’d finally driven me home to my angry and fearful grandma.
“How am I ever going to repay you for this, Calla? Thank you,” he’d told me. I remembered his hands clenched around thesteering wheel and how he’d shaken his head, as if he still didn’t believe what had happened that day.
“My grandma would probably have tried to shoot you if you’d come around,” I added now. “And I had made that dramatic declaration.” I felt myself heat with embarrassment. “You probably didn’t want to get involved with someone who used to be in love with you.”
“You used to be in love with me,” he echoed. We looked at each other and again, I seemed to feel the distance widen. It was my chance to make another move—I wasn’t going to stick my hands down his pants, no matter how much I might have wanted to, but I could have said something.
Will could have, too, because if he felt a different way now…
This house, so far off the country road and with neighbors literal miles away, was much quieter than where I’d lived with my grandma. The silence between us stretched unbroken for what felt like miles, too, and then I stepped back and walked up the stairs to my bedroom. Maybe I was a coward, but at least I was a coward who didn’t have another broken heart.
Chapter 15
