Page 74 of Little Bitter Truths
“I said that out loud?”
“I never thought you’d do it, though.You were just frustrated.”
“What I learned about Jeremy yesterday hit me harder than I expected.I suppose that says something about how much I liked him.I can’t remember the last time I connected with someone so strongly.Too bad none of it was real.”
“It’s hard to say whether it was real or not,” I said.
“He lied to me.He pretended to be someone else.How can I believe anything I experienced with that man?”
I sat beside her.“I can’t believe I’m saying this, and it doesn’t mean I’ve ruled him out as a suspect or that I think what he did is okay, but it is possible to lie about one thing and still tell the truth about another.”
“Even if I believe you, it doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Giovanni removed a few plates from the cabinet, spooning eggs, bacon, and potatoes onto each, and then he took them to the table and set them down.
“Let’s eat while it’s still hot,” he said.
Mia stared at the plate as though Giovanni’s breakfast was the first decent thing to happen to her in days.
“Is everything all right?”Giovanni asked.
“Are you always like this in the morning?”she asked.
“I find it calming and rewarding to prepare a nice dish for someone.”
“You realize normal people are okay to just eat cereal, right?”
“Yes,” he replied.“But why would you when you can have something far superior?”
She smiled, and as we settled in, she returned to our previous conversation, making it clear it was still weighing on her.
“I’ve started to question my own judgment,” she said.“I don’t trust it anymore.”
Giovanni looked up from his coffee.“What do you mean?”
“Someone has it out for me, and I can’t even figure out who or why.”
“You’re carrying a blame that doesn’t belong to you.”
She stabbed a fork into the potatoes.“Doesn’t it?”
“No,” I said.
She shifted in the chair and then she said something unexpected.“I’ve been thinking about something since this morning, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should have mentioned it before.”
“What is it?”I asked.
“Adrian Webb, my neighbor across the street.He helped you pick up everything you dropped the other day.”
“I remember.Tell me about him.”
“He lives alone as far as I know, and for the most part, he keeps to himself, but he does have an annoying dog … orhad.”
“Annoying in what way?”
“Ever since Adrian moved in, his dog has been pooping on my lawn.”
