Neither Beth nor I responded.
Finally, he sat back up. “Okay. We’re going to sort this out.” He gestured to me. “Dol—Leigh.” He sighed. “Sit down.”
I perched on the opposite side of the couch from Beth.
“What did you say to her?” he asked Beth.
“I wasn’t trying to make her run away,” said Beth. She turned to me. “I wasn’t. I mean it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I wanted to know what was going on with you two,” she said. “I saw the way you looked at her, and...”
“And what?” he said. “What does it matter how I look at her? Why do you care?”
She laughed in disbelief. “You bastard.”
“Would both of you stop calling me names, please?” he said.
She shut her eyes. “Could you and I talk alone, Griff?”
That fucking nickname again. It made me seethe.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not when you’ve somehow managed to make my girlfriend think I have something going with you. I’m not going to do that to her. You say whatever you need to in front of her.”
Did he just call me his girlfriend? My heart surged.
She took a deep breath. She picked up a pillow and began to squish it nervously. “All right. You remember last fall, that time in the car, when I kissed you?”
He nodded slowly. “But you were pregnant, and you were lonely, and that wasn’t about me, Beth. You know it wasn’t.”
“You can tell yourself that, if you want, I guess,” she said. “But I’d just been working up the courage. I thought maybe you might... you saved me, you know. I thought maybe it meant something.”
“I saved you because it was the right thing to do,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “And you told me that you didn’t kiss people anyway. You said you were asexual. That you were broken.”
Griffin looked at his feet. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“So what’s different about her, huh?”
He rubbed the top of his head. “When I said that to you, I swear to God, I thought it was true.”
“And she changed your mind? Why? Because she doesn’t have a baby? Because her hair is long and straight, not wavy like mine? Because she’s Frank’s daughter?”
“I just never thought about you that way,” he said. “And I didn’t think you thought that way about me. Not really.”
“Well, I do,” she said. “I’m in love with you, Griffin. I always have been.”
He stood up. “What?” His voice was very soft.
“I’m not saying it again.”
He drew a hand over his face. “I need some air.” He turned and walked out of the apartment.
Beth put the pillow over her face. “Shit, shit, shit.”
I didn’t feel like I belonged here anymore. I got to my feet and went to the door as quietly as I could.
“Did he fuck you?” she said from behind me.
I froze and turned. “That’s not your business.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t, did he? Well, that’s something. Maybe he’s not a raging liar after all.”
“Listen, I’m sorry—”
“Save it,” she said. “Your father was just like the rest of them, you know that? He was as corrupt and as cowardly and as obsessed with money as everyone else there. He wasn’t any kind of hero, no matter what Griffin thinks.”
“I know that,” I said. “I think my dad wanted to change, though. But I think it was too late.”
“Maybe it’s always too late,” she said. “Or maybe people don’t actually change.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Like Griffin,” she said. “He’s going to let you down. He lets you think he’s superman, that he can handle everything. But he’s not. He’s far from perfect. And he will abandon you, just like he abandoned me.”