Chapter Fourteen
FOURTEEN
Greg stood frozen to the carpet in his motel room, staring down at the flyer. A thousand new words, which he couldn’t recall ever learning, floated up into his brain. He was a skuzzball . An evildoer . A miscreant and a malefactor . He was the worst of humanity. A Nazi. A person who spread vile and hateful rhetoric. A propagandist .
It felt like the floor beneath his feet had turned to quicksand. It dragged him down, his head spinning. All at once, he was assaulted by some memory, disjointed sounds and images. Car horns blaring. Doctors, shining a light into his eyes at the hospital. And that voice, whispering in his head, justice, justice ...
The voice was getting louder.
He didn’t understand it. But he knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that he didn’t want to be one of these people—a bad guy. A Paper Boy.
And yet the evidence was overwhelming.
He also needed to get back to Faye. Scrambling to put back the items, Greg hid them beneath his mattress. Leaving that hotel room, he functioned in a daze.
Faye was already waiting in the parking. He was torn between impulses—to tell her the truth, to lie—until his mind wandered back to something Faye had said to him. There was no room in her life or business for an anti-Semite.
“So,” Faye asked, clapping her hands together. “Any luck?”
“What?” Greg blinked back to reality.
“Did you find out anything juicy?” she asked. “Anything that would make a Samantha Beacher novel look pale in comparison?”
His heart lurched into his throat. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he also couldn’t very well tell the truth. He was caught in her gaze, in her thick curls swirling around those cherublike cheeks, and she looked so lovely. He thought back on their time together, all the things she had done for him, all the ways she had helped him, the promises they had made to each other—the red string still dangling from his wrist—and he didn’t want to hurt her.
He didn’t have time to think this plan through. He simply took one look at Faye and decided that whoever he had been in the past no longer mattered. She had changed him, made him a good person. If he had been a Nazi, he wasn’t one anymore. Now his only desire was to protect her. To keep her safe. Safe from him, especially.
“Listen, Faye,” Greg said, trying to hide any sign of anxiety. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me so far. I really do. Taking me in when I didn’t have anywhere to go, nursing me back to health, feeding me all those delicious baladur cakes, teaching me Jewitch magic...but I was thinking about it just now. Maybe it’s best you take me to a shelter.”
Her chin dipped back. “You’re not comfortable on the pullout couch?”
“It’s not that.”
“Because we could always switch it up,” she offered. “Take turns. I don’t mind the—”
“I’m fine on the couch, Faye.”
She looked confused.
He was, too.
“Is this because we had a fight?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?”
She attempted to clarify. “I ran off without taking you and your fears seriously.”
He had totally forgotten about their fight. In truth, it seemed so spectacularly insignificant now, given what he had learned in the hotel room. Especially because, plot twist , it turned out he was the one who was dangerous. He rubbed between his temples, at the spot where a headache was beginning to develop inside of him, and tried to explain again.
“It’s not about you, Faye.”
“Well, I don’t believe that for a minute.” She laughed.
“It’s not about you.”
His eyes caught on hers. And he could see it there, in the depths of them—the way the whites began to water—that he was hurting her. That he was breaking her, in some form or fashion. It was hurting him, too. He was surprised at how raw the thought of leaving her left him. And yet he couldn’t stay. He wouldn’t stay. Because it was wrong. Because he might wake up one morning, remembering who he was—and hurt her.
He had to prevent that, no matter the cost.
“What I’m trying to say is that you’ve done enough for me, okay? You’ve given me enough of your time, enough of your life. You’ve been more than kind, more than generous. But you have a business and a life to get back to. You have friends and...and Eric. And you’ve done enough for me, okay? You don’t owe me anything else. So please, just take me to a shelter.”
Her eyes drifted down to the asphalt. Her nine working fingers tapped on her purse.
“I need to tell you something,” Faye said finally. Quietly. “Before you go...”
“Okay.”
“The night before I hit you with my bike, I was drinking.”
“Drinking?”
“Drunk,” she admitted. “For the first time in three years, I broke into that wedding wine, and I drank two bottles...and then, I did some really, really weird things.”
Greg couldn’t help but be curious. “What sort of... really, really weird things?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, quickly. “The point is, I was all alone at Magic Mud Pottery, the flyers had just happened, and even though I have fought so hard to be this person who is never vulnerable...the truth is, I was afraid.”
His heart broke. He hated that someone had made her feel that way, that he had made her feel that way. He wanted to take it away. Make it better. But all he could manage to do was stand there, collapsing under the weight of his own shame.
“I’m so sorry, Faye,” he stammered. He meant it. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
She nodded, her eyes drifting off into the darkness surrounding them. And he could see this was hard for her. It was in her face, the pained expression, the way every beautiful laugh line scrunched up around her nose. God, her nose was adorable. And he hated that it had to be like this, that the universe had brought them together in such a spectacularly awful fashion—but he would never regret meeting Faye.
Faye took a breath and continued. “But since you’ve come to live with me, I haven’t been scared. I’ve been able to sleep peacefully most nights. And when I’ve had a nightmare, you were there for me...with hard kosher salami, just like my father. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you really want to go to a shelter, if you really can’t stand me that much, if I’m some sort of sea Gorgon that you’re eventually going to have to kill with a cap of invisibility, and a shield made of mirrors—”
“Wait, what?” Greg didn’t understand where her words were coming from. “What are you talking about?”
“Just let me finish.”
He stopped talking.
“What I’m trying to explain to you,” she said finally, “is that if you really want to leave me, I’ll respect your wishes. I’ll drop you off at the shelter, and I will never bother you again. But please don’t feel you need to leave here on my account, because the truth is, I like having you around. I feel safer when you’re there. And I don’t want you to leave, Greg. So, I’m inviting you—I’m asking you—to stay with me for as long as you want.”
“Faye...”
Her name caught in his mouth. Because he was torn. Wavering between the knowledge that he might not be safe for her—that he might be one of those awful, bad people—while simultaneously acknowledging that he made her feel secure. He made her feel safe. Above all else, she was asking him to stay.
He didn’t know what the right choice was. He didn’t know what was good, all the ways to take things with a grain of salt, understand the nuance—but he knew that he didn’t want to leave her. He glanced down to his hand, his wrist, where that red string was still knotted. It hadn’t fallen off yet.
“Okay,” he said simply.
“Okay?” Faye asked, her eyes going wide. “You’re going to stay?”
“Yes.”
A tiny whoop of victory escaped her lips. The brightness in her eyes returned, which remarkably made Greg feel lighter, too. It was going to be okay.
The universe was working in his favor.
It was on that car ride back to Magic Mud Pottery that he made an important decision. He didn’t know for certain if he was a Paper Boy, or a bad guy, but he was going to find out. And if he had been the person behind the flyers, he would spend the rest of his life working for divine retribution, combating anti-Semitism, earning his forgiveness.
He glanced over the console at Faye, the woman who understood him, and made a second, silent promise to her.
He was going to protect her.
There was a lightness that followed them the rest of the evening. The same routine they had always done together—pulling out the bed inside the couch, trying not to trap Hillel beneath the frame in the process—was dotted with sideways glances, and flushed cheeks, both of which lingered too long. And when it was time for sleep, when Faye retired to her bedroom, and Greg went to the edge of his mattress to find another book, she closed the door behind her.
Except this time, he didn’t hear it lock.