Page 30 of Light Up The Night
"My head is already spinning, Riley," I say.
He looks at me, concerned. "Oh, nope. It's okay. No spinning."
I frown at him. "Are you mocking my literal nature?"
"Mocking? Never. Teasing, affectionately? Yes."
"Oh. I see." We walk together in silence for several blocks. Finally, I can hold back the question no longer. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" he asks.
"Helping me. Any of it, but the fundraising in particular."
He does not answer immediately. "I want to. It's a noble cause, for one. And, honestly, I like you. I want to help." He says it so bluntly, casually, as if it wouldn’t rock the foundations of my world.
“You like me." I register the words and their meaning—and the fact that he has said them more than once—but my heart cannot accept their veracity.
"Yep."
"Interesting." It emerges flatly, atonal.
He walks a few steps and then looks at me. "Wait, hold up." he stops, moves in front of me, and tries to catch my eyes. "Cadence…do you not believe me?"
"In all honesty, no. To be clear, I do not think you are lying. Rather, it is obvious you do not understand me, which makes me an interesting puzzle, at best. Experience informs me that you will lose interest once the novelty wears off."
"Nah." He waves a hand. "It ain’t that."
His dismissal of my statement is breezy and casual. Utterly without value or merit, or so it seems.
"History would beg to differ," I say.
"Maybe." He frowns in my direction. “Meanin' you’ve been through that? People show interest, get bored, and move on?"
“To put it kindly, yes."
"What's the unkind version?" he asks.
I sigh. "People can be cruel, Riley." I swallow hard, look straight ahead, buttoning up the overwhelming barrage of emotions before they can spill out. "Especially to someone as…different…as I am."
"People can be real dicks," he says, and while I do not trust my translation of his expression, it appears he understands the sentiment from personal experience. He looks at me, searching my face—for what, I could not say. "I'm not helping you out of idle curiosity or boredom or whatever. And the truth is, I don't like all that many people. You, I do."
"When you say you like me, what does that mean?" I hate the way my heart clatters hopefully within the concrete prison I imagine it to be concealed within.
I know better. But one cannot help hoping, I suppose.
Futile as that hope may be.
A shrug. "You're different. You're interesting. I dunno. I just like you. That's what it means. I like who you seem to be, and the more I learn about you, the more I like you."
As friends?The question remains unasked, percolating in my metaphorical gut.
The inference which follows the unasked question burns even hotter: or as more? But this I cannot allow to even form as a thought.
It simply would not do.
One can only hope and be disappointed so many times, after all.
Riley stops outside a small, one-story brick building, one foot on the bottom-most step; a sign painted on the glass announces that this is the county sheriff's office, and that Cole Mannix is the sheriff. "C'mon, let's go say hi to Cole."
