20 #2
“This is where they store their curiosities. Including me.” Nora went into the kitchen, a big tawny cat brushing against her leg. Fuzzbox. He was named for her favorite punk band, some all-female outfit that hurt MC’s ears to listen to when she’d looked them up.
“Do you want tea?” Nora asked. “I already had coffee.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
The kitchen was just as ornate. Even the kettle was hammered tin with a ceramic handle in the shape of a fire-breathing serpent. Nora grabbed it and turned on the burner. Fuzzbox meowed, and Nora scratched between his ears, then set out a dish of dry food.
“When your parents retire,” MC said, “will they come back for good?”
“They tend not to share plans with me beyond the next month.”
“I can’t imagine flying by the seat of my pants for that long.”
“Maybe it’d be a nice change for you. Not caring about anything or anyone except yourself.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Nora said, “So, you wanted to talk.”
“Yeah.” MC rubbed her arms like she was cold. “Last night was really...”
“Good?”
“Putting it mildly.”
“Okay.”
MC tried not to linger on the fact that Nora hadn’t echoed the sentiment. “But what I was going to say was—”
“I think the fact that we have history is clouding the issue.” Nora leaned back against the kitchen table. “The bottom line is just that we’re physically attracted to each other.”
“That’s... definitely a factor.”
“And I’ve decided, as tempting as it is to pursue that more with you, I shouldn’t. Because it’s just a lot right now.”
“Okay.” It didn’t feel okay, but MC told herself it was only the book that was standing between them—that once they overcame that secret, Nora wouldn’t have to talk to her like this. Which was why she added: “It’s more than a physical thing for me, by the way.”
Nora’s jaw twitched. But she didn’t say anything.
MC forced herself to go on. “As I said last night, being back home has been a lot different than I expected. I’ve kind of started to question where I’m at in life, and you’re a big part of that—”
“You don’t need to give me the details, MC. We slept together, and it was nice, but that doesn’t mean we owe each other anything.”
MC grimaced, thinking about Jen arguing with Nora about what was owed between them. “Do you actually feel that way?”
Nora shrugged. “We grew up next to each other. We spent time together senior year. That was it. We haven’t even kept in touch.”
She was right. They’d gone their separate ways, and MC hadn’t thought twice about it. She wouldn’t even be in Green Hills—in this kitchen—if Nora hadn’t written Girl Next Door .
As if Nora could hear her line of thinking, she added, “It’s not a big deal. We survived without each other.”
Which was true. MC had been perfectly happy with her life until September. She wondered if she could go back to that. To New York, to Joe, to walks on Eastern Parkway and long mornings in coffee shops. She’d never been alone, really. Just lonely.
The kettle whistled. Nora took it off the stove, but she made no move to pour. She hadn’t even taken out cups.
“I should agree with you,” MC said. “Let the past be the past. Not make things messy.”
“So do that.”
MC tapped her foot; her mind was commanding her to walk back to the door, but she couldn’t seem to take the first step. Her voice got small again. “I hate the idea of not seeing you anymore.”
Nora shook her head. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“Do what?”
“Cut you off.”
“Like you did with Jen?” Nora’s eyes darkened, but MC couldn’t stop herself. “Honestly, I think this is bullshit.”
“What, exactly?”
“Your whole coldhearted thing.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Just drop it, MC.”
“Drop what? A simple observation?” She spread her hands. “Look how much you do for Lois. How you are with those kids at story hour. You go out of your way for Heather. For me. And that’s just what I’ve picked up on from seeing you now and then on the weekends these past few months.”
Nora’s expression had closed off fully by then, a warning look in her eyes. Twenty-four hours ago, MC would’ve heeded such a look.
She made her voice as gentle as she could: “Why are you so afraid of letting people into your life?”
As MC watched something break behind Nora’s forbidding gaze, it occurred to her that this was actually her own fear too—that she had plenty of relationships, but none of them went deep, because she wouldn’t let them.
It wasn’t just about her dating life, or even her brother.
It was about everyone she’d ever met. Even Joe sometimes.
And maybe that was why she’d always been so worried about not meeting expectations.
Why she always tried to go above and beyond any favor asked of her.
Some part of her knew she needed to provide constant reassurance that she was worth keeping around, not because she didn’t deserve to be kept around—that feeling was secondary—but because the core exchange of trust at the base of every solid relationship was not something she was brave enough to agree to.
“You have no idea,” Nora said, “what you’re talking about.”
“Then correct me. Like, with evidence.”
MC crossed her arms, waiting for the bomb to finally drop between them, her body rigid with dread, but also the most powerful anticipation she’d ever felt.
She realized she needed everything to be out between them at last. The truth about Nora’s book, about MC’s favor to Joe.
A picture of the whole house of cards before it finally collapsed.
And they could both be mad, and both be relieved, and then move on. Maybe.
“How’s this for evidence?” Nora said, looking out the window. “Leave.”
“But we’re still talking.”
“I’m done talking.”
“For today?”
“For the foreseeable future.”
MC’s mouth hung open. “That’s not fair.”
“Grow up, MC.”
MC wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans, suddenly furious. At Nora, at herself—at what cowards they both were, and had always been, each in their own way.
She wanted to make a different choice for once.
To be something she’d never been before.
To believe that such things came down to willpower rather than character.
But when she reached for her voice, the one deep inside her, the one that knew the truth, she realized it still didn’t have the words, and maybe never would.
She blew out the breath she’d been holding and walked away.