Cary entered and quietly closed the door. He stood there gazing down at the floor for a long moment. I turned on the lamp on my nightstand. The brightness made him squint.
"What is it, Cary?" I finally asked.
"I was just wondering what happened up at Grandma Olivia's," he said.
"Somehow, Cary, I think you already know," I said and looked quickly from him to my toes. I always thought I had ugly toes. They were too big, but Robert said they were perfect. He claimed everything about me was perfect. How blind love can make someone, I vaguely thought. I'm far from perfect.
"What do you mean, I already know?" Cary replied. He gazed at me and I stared back, undaunted.
"Someone told her I had been at the Sea Marina at night, alone with Robert."
"So? Anybody could have told her that, Laura. Anyone could have seen you go there. Maybe you told one of your friends at school. Maybe you bragged about it to Theresa Patterson," he added quickly. "Maybe--"
"Maybe you told her, Cary," I said firmly.
"I would never--"
"Cary, for as long as we have been alive, you couldn't lie to me easily. You're not doing a good job of it now either," I said. "I don't know whether to just cry or scream my loudest at you."
He stared.
"I might have said something to her," he admitted. "She's . . . well, you don't know what it's like to be interrogated by her. She called me to her house a few days ago and--"
"Why didn't you tell me, Cary?" He was silent. "Were you ashamed? Was that it? Ashamed that you betrayed me?"
"Yes," he admitted.
"Why? What happened?" I asked. "Cary, you might as well tell me everything and stop playing these silly games with me. You might have said something? You would know if you said something, Cary."
"Okay, I'll tell you what happened. She started with her questions about my taking you up to see Aunt Belinda. She was very angry about that and she bawled me out for not knowing better. She wanted to know what was so important about us seeing Belinda. I told her I didn't see her; it was just you and she got. . I don't know . . . very mean-looking. She was really scary, Laura. I've never seen her like that. She told me to sit down and she stood up. She's only up to here," he said, holding his hand to about his chest, "but suddenly, she looked gigantic to me. She hovered over me and demanded to know why you went to see Belinda. What did you discuss? What did Belinda tell you? As fast as I told her I didn't know, she asked another question, firing them at me so fast, my head began to spin. I thought I was in one of those police stations you see in the movies. You know,
interrogation rooms with the bright light in the person's face?"
"So then you told her about my letters, didn't you, Cary?" I asked directly.
His eyes shifted to my desk drawer and then back to me. "I don't know what you--"
"Cary, you can't lie to me," I reminded coldly. "I know those letters were read. I had them folded and tied together a certain way. May wouldn't read them and Mommy and Daddy wouldn't read them. Who does that leave?"
"Well, I was worried about you. I knew you kept his letters in that drawer. I came in here to talk to you one day just as you were putting them away. When you started acting weird, I knew it had something to do with Robert Royce. So I came in here and just read a few."
"You read my personal letters," I said, shaking my head. It was one thing to suspect it and another to hear the confession from his lips.
"I care about you. I don't care about any personal letters," he claimed. Then he paused and softened his face. "Were they true, Laura? I mean, what he says happened between you and him in his place?"
I shook my head and looked away.
"I should have known you would read them," I muttered. "The stuff in those letters, that was the girl stuff you went to talk to Belinda about, wasn't it?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It was far more than that."
"We never talked about those kinds of things, Laura. We never really talked about sex, but I always thought that you would be different from the other girls in our school, that you would never--"
"I'm not like the other girls. I am different, Cary," I insisted, my voice cracking with emotion.
"That's what I think, too," he said, quickly nodding. "I think it's all his fault," he said firmly, twisting my words.
"It's not all his fault!" I cried, pounding my thighs with my small fists. The sight made Cary wince. I lowered my voice. "It's nobody's fault. I never did anything I didn't want to do. I happen to . . I happen to love Robert, Cary, and he loves me, too. Now you've gone and made things very hard for us. You had no right to do that."