Page 121 of ClickBack

“They had an address, Giselle. Zion’s school. I wasn’t waiting around to see what somebody did with that.”

“Neither would I.”

“I got people on it.”

“And I’m glad somebody got that down. I’m asking why you didn’t call me while they did it.”

He starts an answer, stops, then says, “I should have.”

I press my fingers against the edge of the counter. I had prepared for an argument. The admission makes me want to cry, which is worse.

“Did you tell the reporter what to say?”

“Tori handled that. I told her to put the attention on me and leave you out of it.”

“You can’t leave me out of a photograph I’m standing in.”

“I meant the rest of your life.”

“Then let me tell you which parts need protecting. You don’t even know all of them.”

The crown photograph is still open behind our call. I can see a corner of the sash, the place where my mother had pinned it so it would lie flat. I turn the phone over even though that means hearing Jarrett from farther away.

“Tell me,” he says.

“I’m not ready.”

“All right.”

“And don’t tell me it will be gone by the weekend. Can you actually promise that?”

“No.” His answer is rough. “I wanted it gone.”

“So did I. That doesn’t make it true.”

I sit at the kitchen table. He stays on the line while I pull the robe closer around me. I am cold now, though nothing in the house has changed.

“When I was sixteen, there was a room full of adults who had already decided what was going to happen,” I say. “They called my mother in afterward. I sat beside her while they explained it. Nobody asked me anything they hadn’t answered for themselves.”

“Was that about the crown?”

“Some of it.”

I can remember the chair better than the room. The seat dug into the backs of my knees. I had wanted to shift, and even that had seemed like something they might hold against me.

“You aren’t those people,” I tell him. “I understand that. But tonight I found out everybody knew what was happening except me. Then you told me to be quiet and let you handle it.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel small.”

“I know you weren’t.”

That is the part I cannot get comfortable with. I have spent years recognizing the small dismissals, the affectionate correction, the person who will explain it better because I am upset. I did not expect to have to watch for any of that with him.

“You want to protect me, but you didn’t think I should have a say.”

I hear what I have said only after it is out. My hand goes flat on the table. I have no business telling him what he feels, no right to take a word neither of us has offered and use it in an argument.

He says my name. Nothing comes after it.