He gazes into my eyes, unflinchingly, and I have to look away. “Claire, I find you very, very attractive.” I take a step back and hold out my spoon. “I’m not trying to get you into bed. I just wanted to make that known. Since I saw you last week, dancing next to your friend’s car, I knew I wanted to get to know you.”
I cringe as I realize Adam saw me dancing next to Senia’s car when I was imitating what Senia’s four-year-old sister does whenever a Justin Bieber song comes on. Then he saw me space out in the café yesterday and, somehow, he still finds me very, very attractive.
But I can’t shake the nagging voice in my head that tells me Chris would think this was way too soon. Why the fuck should I care what Chris would think? He’s the one who left me to go pursue his solo career—even if I did encourage him to leave. I knew it would happen, he was the best rock-blues guitarist I’d ever known, but I guess I never really expected to be left behind. So why the hell should I care what he thinks? He’s gone, probably fucking a new groupie every other night, or that Disney celebrity he was seen with three weeks ago.
Ugh! I hate that I even care enough to keep track of this stuff.
“Claire? Where did you go?”
Adam’s voice breaks through my troubled thoughts and I push aside that voice in my head that wishes it were Chris calling my name.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “This is why I meditate. To keep this shit out.”
He uprights my barstool and takes a seat on his stool again. He pats the seat the cushioned seat and I pretend not to notice that our knees are touching as I sit down.
“I won’t make you eat my gourmet mac if you tell me why you dropped out.”
The question shouldn’t stun me, but it does. It’s like a punch in the chest and I’m suddenly breathless as I try to imagine why Cora would tell him I dropped out.
“Did Cora tell you that?”
He shakes his head adamantly. “I took a guess and you just confirmed it. A smart girl like you doesn’t end up working in a small town café unless she’s running away from something. So what is it?”
I rest my arms on the breakfast bar and practically lean my face into the pot of pasta. “I wish I could tell you.”
“It’s easy. Just move your jaw and your tongue a little and—voila!—out come the words. It’s like magic.”
I push the pot away and bury my face in my arms. “I wish that were true.”
It’s true. I really wish I could tell him the truth. I wish I could tell everybody the truth. Keeping the secret alone is enough to make me grind my teeth in my sleep. This secret is eating away at me. The only thing that keeps it from consuming me is meditation.
“Does it have to do with money?”
“No, my tuition was paid for by the State of North Carolina.”
“If you tell me why you dropped out, I’ll tell you why I moved to Wrightsville Beach,” he offers, and he has my attention.
I sit up and look him in the eye. He nods at me as if to say, the ball’s in your court.
I want to tell him everything, from the day I arrived at the Knight Family’s house more than five years ago to the day I moved into this apartment almost three months ago, but I can’t. Everyone thinks they’ll understand, they swear they’ll understand, but when you tell them about the horrible things you’ve done they can’t help but judge you or worse pity you. I don’t want anybody’s judgment or pity. I just want to be forgotten and, if I’m lucky enough, forgiven.
“Sorry, but that’s a trade I can’t make.”
He doesn’t appear disappointed. He probably anticipated this. “All right. How about this?” He closes his eyes as he takes a beat. “If I can get you to tell me why you dropped out of school then you have to go back.”
I chuckle. “That’s funny.”
“It’s not funny. I’m serious. This is a serious bet. I think you desperately want to go back to school and I’m willing to put our friendship on the line in order to see that you make it back. What do you say?”
How the hell does he know so much about me from a conversation with Cora? The truth is I do want to go back to school. I was a Sociology major. My dream was to become a caseworker; a better caseworker than the half-dozen I had. I wanted to make sure that no kid felt the way I did, like a nuisance.
I arch my eyebrow and pretend to think about it, because I know he’ll never weasel this out of me. “What’s in it for me if I don’t give up my secret?”
“You get to keep your secret.”
“No, you have to do something.”