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“Tell me now, are you just after my money? My parents’ money?” Stella’s face shifts from shock to rage, heat flooding her cheeks as she gapes at me.
“Why on earth would I be after your money?” Her voice is low and even, completely controlled.
“I don’t know, Stella, you tell me.” She scoffs. “You seem to be swimming in debt. Maybe you feel like you’re owed something after what my family did to yours, huh? What, did your dad put you up to this? Is that why you visit him so often? Reporting back to him, scheming behind my back?”
“Where is this coming from? When have I ever made you think that I want your money?” Stella shouts the accusation, daring me to prove her wrong. “James, I’m not after you for your money. I like hanging out with you. Have I ever even asked you for money?”
“Maybe you haven’t found the right opportunity. Maybe you’re waiting until your hooks are so deep in me that they pierce my soul and you can take me for all I’m worth.” I’m suddenly glad that we chose to eat in the car. The awkwardness and horror of this conversation would have been impossible to have in front of other people. “Maybe that’s why you’ve been keeping it a secret.”
“They’re my secrets, James! I don’t owe them to you!”
“You do when it involves my family! And the horrible things they did to you!”
“For god’s sake, James, get your head out of your ass before it gets stuck up there. I don’t need your money! I didn’t even know you had any until we were already there!”
“Well, why else are you with me then? I’m way too old for you, you want to go travelling, you hate the job I’ll be taking on, what’s the point? Why else would you?” Her glare escalates from angry to seething.
“I have my own damn money, James. Drop it.” Her words are deadly knives, waiting to slice if I step wrong.
I don’t care.
“No. Tell me now what you want, or I’m done.”
“I want you! At first, I thought it was just fun, but I like hanging out with you, and talking with you, and you’re like, really smart and funny even if you try to look like some weird bouncer most of the time. I want to keep doing that, why can’t we?”
“Because, Stella, I need someone who is honest with me.” She remains silent. “Is it for your dad? For his treatment?” I see her stutter on her next words, her crystalline eyes widening as she struggles to put words together. I clock the moment her expression shutters.
“I don’t owe you an explanation.” Her words are like ice.
“Fine. If you’re not explaining, then I’m not staying. If there was nothing going on, you wouldn’t be hiding things.”
“Let me out of the car.” It’s a demand, not a request.
“I’ll drive you home, Stella.” I can’t exactly leave her here by herself, much less on Christmas.
“Let. Me. Out.” Bitter fury coats her words, and it’s the only reason I say nothing. I stare her down as she exits, leaving our now forgotten food on the floor and slamming the car door behind her. She marches her pert little ass back up to the diner, never once looking back at me.
How fucking naïve could I be? I was raised to know better, to be on the lookout for people like this, and here I am, tangled up in an ever-tightening web of her deceptions.
Such an idiot. How in the world did my mother see this and I didn’t? She has me wrapped around her little finger so tightly I brought her to Christmas dinner!I peel out of the parking lot, pulling over a half kilometre up the road in the opposite direction of where we were headed, giving me just enough distance from Stella to try to gather my thoughts.
My brain flips through the memories of the last few weeks. How she happened to be everywhere I was—at the coffee shop, at my apartment, at the bar during every one of my sets.
She could have asked for those shifts. She saw the schedule, that I would be there.Was this all just a machination for payback?More like a payout.
All I know is that I don’t need her confirmation to know the truth. Even if my gut is twisting with uncertainty, there’s no other reason she wouldn’t tell me.
I’m still stewing in my own pity party when a car drives by, a rideshare logo sticker in the window, and a familiar head of golden locks in the backseat. I figured she would have called a car, but it’s not heading in the direction of her apartment building.
Where the hell could she be going this late on Christmas?
I debate for only a moment before following the car as it takes off, a small amount of guilt making itself known as I consider the position I’ve put her in.Not to mention how astronomical that surge pricing must have been.
Wherever she’s going, it has to do with what she’s been hiding. And I’m determined to find out what that is.
She stops near a shop on a strip for a few minutes which hosts a theatre, a coffee shop, and a florist.
She’d better not go into a movie just to avoid me. Are any of these places even open on a Christmas afternoon? Toronto is diverse, I guess. Lots of people need shit, despite the holiday, and not everyone celebrates.
