She stepped back, away from his touch, and swallowed thickly. “I can’t. I think this is something I just need to figure out on my own.”
His face fell, his expression defeated. “So . . . you want me to go?” He didn’t echo her steps this time, apparently unaffected by the gravity that tried to tug her toward him like insistent hands. The few feet between them may as well have been a chasm.
Rose bobbed her head up and down, and he moved toward the door, shoulders slightly slumped. Protests bubbled up inside her—no, stay, talk to me, ask me what’s going on, I’ll tell you if you ask again—but she clenched her jaw tight, trapping them behind her teeth.
Justin may think she was the voice of denial, but he was wrong. This was her accepting things as they were. Noah hadn’t chosen her; he’d picked Steph. That was the reality they lived in. Time to actually live in it.
So she stayed silent as Noah turned his back on her and walked away.
Chapter Forty-Seven
JUSTIN
At dinner, Mrs. Hanley piles juicy slices of fried ham and creamy mashed potatoes onto my plate, ignoring my repeated insistences that I can’t eat that much.
“You’re too skinny,” she proclaims for the hundredth time, adding a generous helping of greens beside my ham, and finishing off the plate with a thick slice of crispy cornbread. “Didn’t your mama feed you back home?”
“My mom didn’t really cook,” I say, picking up my fork.
“Hmph,” Mrs. Hanley grunts. She smacks the back of my hand with a serving spoon, leaving a splatter of potatoes on my skin. “Boy, put that fork down. You know we say grace in this house.”
“Sorry.” I start to lift my hand to my mouth to lick off the potatoes, but at a look from Mrs. Hanley, I wipe it on my napkin instead, then accept Mrs. Hanley’s open hand. Her wrinkled fingers feel soft and fragile, but her grip is strong as iron.
When Rose first suggested that I stay with Noah’s grandmother, I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t thrilled about it. I’m not great at estimating the ages of the elderly—old is old, has always been the extent of my understanding—but by my best guess, Mrs. Hanley is in her seventies, and has been living on her own since her husband died earlier this year. While I appreciated the free room and board, the geriatric roommate was decidedly less appealing.
But honestly, it turns out that Mrs. Hanley kind of rocks. She’s funny and smart, and she’s lived an incredible life, traveling on buses while her kids were in school to listen to speakers like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and writing letters and joining protests for issues like voting rights and the desegregation of schools.
She mentioned being in jail once, and when I expressed my surprise that she’d ever been arrested, she just gave me a sad smile and said, Son, jail is just part of growing up for some of us. But she didn’t say any more after that, and as curious as I was, I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask. I don’t know if that makes me kind, or a coward.
It’s simultaneously inspiring and depressing, hearing about Mrs. Hanley’s experiences and knowing how much energy she’s spent working for change. Alyssa is always attending these protests and rallies for gun control, racial justice, health care, climate change, you name it—I’ve even participated in a few walkouts at school myself, although I think most of us were just using it as an excuse to get out of class—but I’ve never really paid much attention to all that. I always figured that whatever happened, my life would probably stay pretty much the same. Alyssa says I’m missing the point, that it’s not about me, but I just figured that she and I were wired differently. That she was built to care too much, and I wasn’t, and that was fine.
Listening to Mrs. Hanley talk about the things she’s lived through, though, I feel like I’m starting to get it. She thinks that Rose’s stepmother’s campaign for mayor is a sign of better things to come, but decades from now, people like her will still be protesting, getting arrested, getting killed—while fighting for many of the exact same causes. Too little has changed, probably because too many people like me are content to just sit on our asses and assume that everything will sort itself out. And if it doesn’t, that’s no big deal either, because we’ll be fine either way.
If I ever make it back, I owe Alyssa an apology for being a lazy, privileged asshole.
Mrs. Hanley finishes saying grace, releases my hand, and I dig into my meal, trying not to think about all the ways the future is going to do its best to screw over this kind, determined woman. Every bite is amazing, and before I know it, I’ve polished off my whole plate and am going back for seconds. Mrs. Hanley chuckles to herself. “See, I told you it wasn’t too much.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I grin, helping myself to another piece of cornbread.
“So,” Mrs. Hanley says, her tone suddenly serious as she folds her hands in front of her plate, “tell me why you stomped in here tonight looking like someone just drowned your puppy.”
My appetite shrinks to a pinpoint, but I stick a bite of ham in my mouth anyway, chewing slowly while I try to come up with an answer that isn’t a lie. I’ve been lying to pretty much everyone except Rose since the moment I got here, but I try to lie to Mrs. Hanley as little as possible.
When I swallow, she’s still patiently staring at me, and I haven’t come up with anything good, so I opt for vague. “Rose and I had a fight.”
“Ah.” She leans back in her chair, moving her folded hands to her lap. “About what?”
I might have said that no one here cares about her and that she’s barely even a person. “We just disagreed about this . . . project we’re working on, and things got a little heated.”
“Mm-hmm.” She twists her mouth, making it clear that she knows there’s more to the truth than that. “And what is this project, exactly? Does it have anything to do with why you suddenly showed up to visit your pen pal in Stone Lake without even letting her know you were coming?”
“I-I don’t . . . ,” I sputter, scrambling to come up with an answer that makes sense. Mrs. Hanley has never even hinted that she didn’t buy my story, and every explanation I can think up to account for the holes in my tale would involve massive lies. I can’t risk it; big lies mean more to keep track of, which means more opportunities to slip up.
But that leaves me with only one option, which might be even worse.
I flip a mental coin. And then decide—screw it.
“We’re trying to figure out who burned down your garage, because we think that whoever it is will do it again, and that people will get hurt next time.”
Mrs. Hanley raises an eyebrow. “And why do you think that?”
“Call it a premonition.”
She purses her lips, considering me thoughtfully. I assume she’s not buying it, but instead of calling me out, she asks, “So what was the disagreement?”
I sigh. What’s that expression? In for a penny, in for a pound? “We’ve got a suspect, but neither of us know if he’s the right suspect, and we don’t know how to even begin figuring that out. We’d look for someone else, but we have no other leads. The police said it’s a dead end, and you’ve already told us everything you remember from that day. We’ve got nothing to go on.”