Page 8 of Sapphire Tears

“Because they stink like fast food,” I tell him. “The smell makes me queasy.”

Again, that’s true, but not the real answer. The real answer is that I’m sweating through them every single night. Fear and nightmares and pregnancy will do that to you.

Adrian sighs and lets his shoulders slump forward. “I know. I’m sorry.” He digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small gift bag. “Here.”

I frown. “What’s this?”

“Just a little token,” he says. “Something to say I’m so glad you’re here.”

If “here” wasn’t so miserably depressing, I might be the slightest bit touched. As it is, I’m mostly just wary. But in the face of his hopeful smile, I find myself accepting the gift bag.

I sit down on the rusted bench that runs between the rows of machines and pull out a little red box.

“Adrian…”

“Just open it, okay?” he says enthusiastically.

I glance up at him through my eyelashes. I remember the first time he gave me a piece of jewelry. A bronzed penny with a hole punched through it and my name etched into the surface, dangling from a thin silver chain.

I wore it every single day for the two years up to The Accident. The day before we crashed, the chain broke when I was dancing and I lost it.

I should’ve known then what an omen that was.

I open the box. Inside is… the necklace I lost. Not the same one, of course, but the same thing—a penny with my name carved in it, strung from a silver chain.

“Because you lost the first one, remember?” he asks, dropping to his knees in front of me.

“Of course I remember,” I whisper.

“I always promised to replace it. So… voilà.” He smiles. “Want me to put it on you?”

I snap the box shut. “Not right now.”

His smile falters and his arms on either side of me flex and tighten. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“June.”

I sigh. “I just don’t feel like wearing it, okay?”

His face falls, and he lurches to his feet abruptly.Is this it?I wonder to myself.Is this where he snaps?But when he turns back around to face me, his expression is controlled.

“You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?”

I set the red box aside. “Did you really think it was gonna happen in the blink of an eye?” I ask. “Do you even realize what you’re asking me?”

“Listen—”

“No,youlisten,” I snap, rising to meet him. “You spent our entire relationship lying to me. Don’t expect me to forget that simply because you buy me a gift. That may have worked back then, but it won’t now. You can’t just buy me off and make me forget about—about what youdid.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do!”

“It’s what you’ve always done, Adrian. Lingerie when you wanted sex. Wine when you wanted money. Jewelry when you wanted me to forgive a fight. Am I wrong?”

He shuffles on his feet. He’s wearing his beard longer now. Annoyingly, it suits him. It gives him a kind of maturity, a gravitas that he lacked before.

But I’ve seen the man behind the beard. I’ve trusted that man. I’ve been burned by that man.

---