Page 39 of Fierce

“Thank you for this,” she said. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was. And for what you did today. For helping Karen, and helping me. I know it didn’t turn out the way you expected, and still—you helped. You did so much. You did more than so much. Carrying Karen and everything? I wasn’t very…gracious about it, and I know it. So I need to be gracious now. Or at least…” She laughed under her breath. “I need to try.”

I shifted a little at that. “Nah. It was what anybody would have done.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was kind. And I have to say something else, too.” She was clearly steeling herself. “That you were right. The person who’s been wrong, who’s been offering mixed messages—it isn’t you. It’s me. If I hadn’t wanted to go out with you, all I had to say was no. I said yes, and then I…kept backing off, and blaming you for it. And I realize that isn’t fair.”

Her eyes were steady on mine, and she wasn’t a butterfly now. But then, she never had been.

“Of course it’s fair,” I found myself saying. “Of course you’re scared. You have too much to lose. Maybe I thought you were just…teasing, but you’re not. You’re scared, because you’re on the edge.”

Her eyes were shining a bit now, and she was taking another of those deep breaths. Keeping herself back from that edge, because there was nothing and nobody on the other side.

“Why?” I asked. “Why is it you and Karen?”

She shook her head, her hair moving with her. “You don’t want to hear all this.”

“Yeh,” I said. “I do. Tell me.”

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