"I'm a mess," I said.
"You're not. You're bright and pretty.
Everything is going to be all right." He said it with
such assurance, wondered if everyone else could see
my future clearer than I could. "Don't feel bad about
what happened. Guys like that fool girls every day,"
he added bitterly.
I thought about Laura and Robert Royce and
imagined that was what Cary meant.
"I read a letter Robert Royce wrote to Laura," I
confessed.
"That garbage?" Even in the dim light, I could
see his frown.
"It didn't seem like garbage, Cary. I read only
one, but I thought he was sincere."
"He knew how to use sincerity to get what he
wanted," Cary said sharply. "He was a conniving,
; sneaky--"
"How can you be so sure?"
"I can," he said firmly.
"I'm not even confident about people I've
known all my life, people I've seen on a daily basis.
You can't possibly know what things Laura and
Robert said to each other, what they told and
promised each other, and from what I've learned about
her, she must have been a very bright person, Cary.
Maybe you were just--"
"Just what?"
"Overly worried. It's only natural, I suppose.