Page 53 of Everything You Hate
I turn and walk. My heart hammers against my ribs. I don’t look back. I can feel both of them watching me, Malcolm’s disappointment and Jasper’s contempt following me down the street like a chill.
I make it to the dock before my knees buckle.
Not literally. I don’t fall. But something gives. I stop at the end of the public pier, grip the railing, and stare at the water. The harbor is full. Boats coming and going. The ferry loading for the 3:15. Tourists with backpacks and water bottles, pointing at maps, laughing.
I have nowhere to go. The Tidewater feels like enemy territory now. Malcolm’s resort. Malcolm’s cameras. Malcolm’s version of the story waiting in my inbox.
And the Havens? What are they to me? A family that took in a stray for one night. A dinner I was invited to because Mimi has a heart bigger than her sense of caution. Dean was right about that too. They’d adopt a rabid raccoon if it showed up looking sad enough.
I am the raccoon.
The journal is still under my arm. Evangeline’s words. Eight years of silence. A woman who walked to a pier twice a week and never spoke to the man she was watching because she knew, with the same certainty I know the sound of fog moving over water, that some distances cannot be closed.
I understand her better now than I did this morning.
A boat engine cuts through the harbor noise. I don’t turn. I know the sound of it.
Dean’s boat slides into its slip.
I watch from the corner of my eye. He ties off. Kills the engine. Steps onto the dock, and freezes when he spots me.
I brace.
It comes. “Still here.”
Two words. Flat. Exhausted.
I turn to face him. “Where else would I be, Dean? You made it very clear I have nowhere to go.”
He rubs the back of his neck. Looks at the water. Looks at me. Looks away again. “I didn’t mean?—”
“Don’t.” I push off the railing. “Don’t backpedal. Don’t soften it. You meant every word. You looked at me this morning and you saw everything you hate—the camera, the performance, the woman who turns real people into content—and you said it out loud. So own it.”
He’s quiet for a long time. The dock creaks. A gull lands on a piling beside us and watches with one yellow eye.
“You’re trying to push me away,” I say. “That’s what this is. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to decide I don’t matter and then be mad when I believe you.”
His shoulders drop. Just a fraction. “I was trying to scare you off.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t protect everyone.” The words come out rough. Raw.
And before I can ask what he means, he walks away.
Captain swoops downand lands on the rail beside me, cocks his head, and mutters, “Rude.”
“He sure is.” I laugh. It’s either that or cry. “The ornery bastard.”
“Ornery bastard,” Captain agrees.
“Good boy.” I stroke a finger over his head, and he preens under it. “You make sure you repeat that to Dean loud and often.”
Chapter Fourteen
Evangeline
17 September 1892
