Page 99 of Suncatcher

Pearl would need one, she was sure.

She edged sideways into their cramped kitchen and slumped in the chair closer to the front window. Farther from her mother.

The bottle clinked against the glasses. Pearl snatched the one slid in front of her and downed it, the burning liquid soothing her throat, already reaching for the bottle.

“I’m sorry.”

Pearl choked on her second glass. “You what?”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“What’re you sorry for? Shooting my sweetheart?”

“Sweetheart?”

Pearl grunted and refilled her glass again. “I dunno what else to call her.” Perhaps Pearl shouldn’t call her anything at all. That thought made her grip the glass harder. “Didn’t you hear me when I said I wouldn’t forgive you?”

“Alive and hating me is better than dead.”

“Fuck you. Why’d you have to provoke her? Make her dig that up?”

“To prove to you what she is.”

“To me? Or to you?”

Sheriff Oak didn’t answer.

“You wanted her to attack you. But she didn’t.”

“I know,” Sheriff Oak gritted back. “I was there.”

“And so was I. And everyone else in this godsforsaken town. I know very well what Driz is. Who she is. But you wouldn’t listen to me. You had to torment her instead.”

“I didn’t—”

“You never listen to me.” Pearl slammed the empty glass down on the wood.

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Pearl shoved to her feet. “Thanks for the drink, Sheriff.”

She grabbed her clothes from the foot of the stairs and shouldered through the door, leaving her mother sitting at the table.

Anger burned hot, along with grief. That bourbon needed to hurry the hells up and kick in so she could sleep and not become trapped in her own head tonight. She wasn’t sure she could stand it.

She stumbled through Molly’s door to find her sleeping in the bed. Pearl had shared it for too many nights. An overwhelming fondness for the woman mixed with guilt at the thought of Driz. Would Driz be angry that Pearl had slept with Molly? They hadn’t been intimate. But they had in the past. Pearl didn’t want that to be another secret between them.

Pearl needed to see Driz. To ask her. To talk to her and explain they weren’t together in that way. She couldn’t mess this up yet again.

She ran back into the night. It was stupid, but since when had that stopped her? She ran to escape herself and her own thoughts.

A shape moved high on the bluff, filling Pearl with hope. “Driz!”

The shape shifted, and Pearl kept running past the salt fields. She called again, and her unsteady feet betrayed her. She sprawled forward. A yelp escaped her lips before she could stop it, more in surprise than pain as the sharp, thorny weeds stung her palms.

She managed to pick herself back up as the swoosh of wings made her heart leap.

Driz landed a distance away. “Are you hurt?”