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My head came down on the steering wheel. I didn’t know the right words anymore.
A crow cawed at me from a tree branch. I couldn’t understand the bird any more than Dennis would understand me right now.
Chapter 34
Jennifer
He opened the door.“Jennifer. It’s a weekday.”
“Am I intruding?”
“Not at all. Come in.” He held the door open. “Good thing you weren’t ten minutes earlier. Serena just left.”
His words were a relief as I entered. That I’d so misjudged the situation made me feel even worse. Why did I always jump so quickly toward the wrong conclusion?
“We have to talk,” I told him.
“Sure.” As soon as he closed the door, he took me into a hug, one I couldn’t fully return.
With my face buried in his shoulder, I managed a few words. “I’m so sorry.”
That only made him hug me tighter. He smoothed my hair with his hand. “Talk to me, Angel.”
I wasn’t so sure he’d be ready to hear what I had to say, because he didn’t know the weighty baggage I brought with me. Baggage I’d tried to ignore for weeks now. I shivered at the realization that time might not have made this easier. As the tears came, I clung to him tighter.
I concentrated on what he’d just said. It might be the last time I heard him call me Angel, and I desperately wanted to hang on to that memory.
He pushed back far enough to lift up my chin. His eyes gazed into mine with warmth and caring. “Want to sit down?”
I nodded.
He tried to lead me to the couch, but I pulled him to the small breakfast table instead. He held my hands across the table as we sat.
I had no idea how to start. None of the words I’d practiced made sense to me now.
His kind eyes hadn’t changed yet, because he didn’t know my sins. “I told you, whatever it is, we can fix it. I meant that.”
“I’ve been bad.” I sounded like a child saying it that way, but I was feeling my way into this.
“That’s nothing special. We’ve all done something bad at one time or another. But let’s quantify bad. Did you kill a dozen people?”
That bit of nonsense coaxed a half-smile out of me. “No. It’s not that bad.”
“Then we can get past it, Angel.”
I still doubted he’d want to call me that after I got this off my chest.
The warmth of his hands holding mine gave me the courage to go on. “You know the articles in the paper about the company?”
“Yeah, the ones in theTimes?”
“They’re my fault.”
His grip on my hands tightened as he chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not anybody’s fault. It’s just some sicko who wants to torment me and everybody who works at the company.”
“No, you don’t understand. He got the information from me.”
There. I’d said it.
