Page 40 of Everything You Hate
“They’re digital.”
“Old ones are better.”
“And the marina at eleven, when I came out of the coffee shop.”
His jaw works. “I work at the marina.”
“You do.” I look out the windshield. “And now you happen to be driving down Harbor Street at two in the afternoon in the rain, with no dog and no cargo and nowhere to be.”
“Scarlett—”
“You’ve been three feet behind me all day, Dean.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “You kissed me. Then you told me it shouldn’t have happened. And now you can’t seem to be anywhere I’m not, so pick one, because I can’t work like this.”
The truck stops at the light. The wipers slap twice.
“Curt’s back on the dock,” he says.
“What?”
“Since Tuesday. He’s been drinking at the Salt every afternoon and asking people about you.” He still hasn’t looked at me. “You’re a woman on her own with a notebook, asking questions in a town where people are already unhappy about the answers. So yeah. I’ve been where you are.”
He’s been following me all day because he was worried, and I’ve spent four blocks being angry about it.
“You could have told me that.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“After I dragged it out of you.”
“Yeah.” The light changes. “That’s how it usually goes.”
Saltbox is two blocks ahead, and I have maybe forty seconds, and I have spent all day being handed pieces of him by people who love him.
“I know about your mother,” I say.
His hands go still on the wheel.
“I know you were fourteen. I know your dad worked until he was eighty-six because stopping would have killed him faster. I know Henry took the Haven name and you didn’t get the option.” My throat is tight. “I know you were a rescue swimmer, and something happened, and you’ve never told a single person in your family what.”
He pulls up in front of the hardware store. Puts the truck in park. Doesn’t shut off the engine.
“Mimi talks.”
“Mimi talks because you don’t.” I turn to face him. “I didn’t go looking for that. I sat down to ask about a land transfer from 1895, and I spent forty minutes taking notes on you, and I didn’t stop, and that’s on me. But you don’t get to hand me your whole family for one night and then act shocked that I’m fascinated by them. And by you.”
“I’m not shocked.”
“Then what are you?”
He looks at me. Actually looks, the first time since the porch.
“Careful,” he says.
“Of me?”
“Of what happens after.” He turns back to the windshield. “You’ll write it down. Not because you’re cruel. Because that’s what you do, and you’re good at it, and it’ll be true, and everybody on this island will read it.” His hands flex on the wheel. “And then you’ll leave, and I’ll still be here, and everybody who read it will still be here, and they’ll know.”
The rain runs down the glass.
