Chapter 48
Mylie tried to think of something to say to Ben as they drove home. She knew he wanted to talk, knew that he felt awful about
not telling her about the house or his trip. Still, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed. They’d agreed to be honest, and while
he hadn’t outright lied, this was still a lie by omission.
“If you don’t want me to be on the team anymore after today, I understand,” Ben said, finally breaking the contentious silence
between them.
“I need you on the team,” Mylie replied. “Without you, I’d have to find someone else, and it’s nearly eleven p.m. It’s too
late.”
“Okay,” Ben said.
Mylie sighed. “I just wish you’d told me. I didn’t mean to react that way, but I really thought we’d promised to be honest
with each other. Knowing you knew, even for a little while without telling me, really hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben replied. “I was afraid if I told you that you’d be angry and it would ruin whatever this is between us. I
never meant to hurt you.”
“I would have been sad,” Mylie said simply.
“The East Coast isn’t another planet,” Ben continued. “I’ve been thinking about it. We can make this work, even if I’m not
here.”
“It might as well be another planet,” Mylie said. “How often do you plan to come back?”
Ben was silent, and then he said, “I don’t know. I thought you could come visit me.”
“So, I have to do all the visiting?” Mylie asked. “I’d have to be the one to rearrange my schedule and get on a plane to visit
you?”
“It’s just that I’ll be starting a new job,” Ben said. “Finding a place to live, starting a life in a new place. It would
make sense, at least at first.”
“I have a life, too,” Mylie replied. “It’s just as important as yours.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Ben gripped the steering wheel so tightly that Mylie could see the bone white of his knuckles
glinting in the moonlight.
“Okay,” Mylie said. “Okay, so after you’re settled, you’d start coming back here, to Clay Creek?”
“After a while,” Ben replied, his tone noncommittal.
Mylie shook her head. “For how long?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is,” Mylie began, angling herself toward him, careful to keep her injured hand on her lap. “How long would we
do this?”
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Are you ever planning to leave the East Coast?” Mylie asked. “Move back here?”
Ben was silent.
“That’s what I thought,” Mylie continued. “You want me to come visit you, to see you, to be with you, all on your schedule.
You want me to give up my life, maybe entirely, to be with you without making any sacrifices of your own.”
“You don’t have to live here!” Ben said, the anger that had been building inside of him finally erupting. “You act like you’re
chained to this place. Like you can’t leave.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Mylie said.
Ben slowed down as they neared their houses, his car idling between them, unable to choose a driveway. “How do you know?” he asked her. “How do you know, when you’ve never even been anywhere? You don’t know what life is like anywhere else but here, in this town, full of nothing !”
Mylie sat back. “This town isn’t nothing,” she said, her voice steady. “The people here aren’t nothing. I am not nothing.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Ben replied.
“Yes, it is.” Mylie pushed open the passenger’s side door. “It’s what you’ve always meant, Ben. I’m just glad you’ve finally
said it out loud.”
Mylie got out of the car before Ben could reply. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.
She walked the rest of the way to her house, cradling her hand to her chest, and when the door was safely shut behind her,
she finally allowed those old wounds to crack open and spill out.
Granny was sitting on the couch waiting up for her, her reading glasses shoved down onto her nose. Mylie went to her and nestled
herself in the crook of the older woman’s neck and cried, letting the tears stream down her face while her grandmother comforted
her.
“Shhh,” Granny said, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be all right, child. It’s going to be all right.”
Mylie let the words wash over her, let her grandmother’s voice calm the ache inside of her chest, but she knew that for the
first time in a long time, it wasn’t going to be okay.