Page 74 of The Exit Strategy

I’m going to ruin Natalie Moore’s life like she’s done to mine, and then…I’m finally going after what I want.

“There’s a committee for that?” Junie asks.

“There’s a committee for everything. The question is always which one.”

Our conversation sounds normal to my ears, but the shredding of my heart is so loud, it’s hard to concentrate.

“And you hate all of them.” The crinkle of her eyes quiets some of the noise in my mind.

“I hate the ones that send me things in triplicate.” I smile back. It’s forced—she knows it. “Which is all of them.”

She laughs, diffusing some of the tension in the room. Like a window being opened in a space sealed shut for too many years.

She picks up the binder to her right, then she stands, her movements slow and deliberate.

Neither of us speaks.

In my periphery, she tugs the binder to her chest—protection, armor.

“Cole.”

“Hmm.”

“That…touch.” She’s still staring at the binder in her arms. “I don’t—” Her fingernails tap against the plastic in her arms. “I feel…”

“I know.” The admission is my final barrier cracking.

“I just—I need you to know that it…means something.” She says it like she’d read a legal document. Precise. Deliberate. “I can’t do—I mean, I can’t be…”

Slowly, I turn my head to face her but don’t move closer. If I meet her in the space between us, I won’t be able to do the right thing. But when the morning light catches the diamond on her left hand—Nana Mae’s ring, Arthur’s ring, the ring that won’t come off and the thing we’ve agreed by mutual silence means nothing and everything depending on who’s looking—it throws one small point of light across the table. Connecting us even when I can’t reach for her.

“I’m trying,” I say. A quiet, heartfelt promise.

She exhales. It’s a slow, careful release meant to rebuild her walls that stand no chance against the power of us. “That’s almost as bad as fine, Cole.” Her words are coated in disappointment. “At some point, you’ll have to decide what’s important enough to act on.”

She escapes the kitchen, leaving behind a bomb of her own.

If only Junie understood that what’s important was never up for debate. It’s how to protect her and love her that I’ve never been able to find the solution for.

15

THE TRUTH TAX

JUNIE

The thingabout telling someone the truth is that you have to live with it afterward.

At some point, you’ll have to decide what’s important enough to act on.

That’s what I’d said, and I’d meant it. For so many reasons.

But it’s also the truth for me.

I had every opportunity to push him away sooner than I did, and yet I sat in the silence too because I needed him to break first.

I’ve stared at my ceiling all night, my body betraying everything my mind knows to be true.

The feel of him pressed against me.