Page 85 of Every Good Thing
“Maybe later.”
“Well, you can’t have cotton candy without having real food first,” Ruthie reasons. “Then, I’m going on some rides.”
“That’s our plan.” Lena stays even-toned and refuses eye contact. “You should mingle. We’re fine on our own.”
She’s telling me to fuck off. Her supportive enthusiasm has vacated the premises. This is Pissed-Off Lena.
She wipes ketchup from Ruthie’s lips and brushes the crumbs off her dress. They stand, and Lena tells Ruthie to toss her garbage in the nearest receptacle. I rise, too, the magnolia leaves brushing my shoulders as I slump underneath them.
Lena huffs when I don’t take off. “You should rejoin the Rileys. We’ll be fine.”
“I know. I don’t want to miss the cotton candy.”
She’s unamused.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Oh? For which part?”
I meet her narrowed gaze and stumble over my words. “For all of it.”
She groans, returning her attention to Ruthie and making me feel worse than I already do. She said all the right things earlier when we were alone—exactly what I needed to hear.
How did I repay her support?
With anger, humiliation, and dancing with my ex.
I silently align with her, determined not to leave her side. Ruthie chomps on cotton candy as we explore the offerings. She has her fill of the rides, and the Ferris wheel turns her a worrying shade of green.
Lena suggests leaving soon.
Her hand slips easily into mine as we cross the lawn to the Rileys’ opulent corner, and she gushes with her usual smiling warmth as we deliver thanks and goodbyes.
But the ride home is unnervingly silent.
Ruthie falls asleep in record time, less than two minutes, a preferred outcome to the potential alternative—hot dogs and cotton candy bits all over the backseat.
Lena languidly fixes her eyes on the passenger window. I feel her disappointment, and it makes me want to shrink into my self-hatred and disappear.
Still, I manage to say, “I’m sorry for being short with you about speaking for me… and for dancing with Lauren. It wasn’t—I didn’t want it to happen.”
She doesn’t respond and keeps her eyes directed out the window. Her good hand fists her pant leg, and I wonder if she’s staving off a panic attack.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay.” Her voice shakes with emotion. “I’m sorry for bulldozing you in the conversation. I do it all the time, and I shouldn’t. But I worried you couldn’t hear them and thought you might want me to step in like I always do. Maybe I deserved your pushback, but it felt sharp and humiliating. And that’s after feeling like a jealous shit over you suffering through gruesome horror movies with Lauren while refusing a mid-level one with me the other night—”
“Lena, slow down. Please.”
She takes a breath, twisting in her seat so I can read her lips and hear her better. She repeats herself before saying, “You danced with her, Ben. Fucking danced with her. How should I feel?”
“Upset, like me over your hay games with Matt Kirby.”
She glances at Ruthie, still asleep in the backseat, and leans closer to me. “I’ve never fucked Matt Kirby… and I wouldn’t. And don’t want to. It’s not the same.”
I take a breath, my grip white-knuckling against the steering wheel. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You hurt me at every turn, Ben.” Her voice becomes breathy and strained. I glimpse her purple cast moving toward her face. She covers her mouth with her hand. “Pull over… Can you pull over? Please.”
