I leap out of my skin.
Holy—
No one ever comes knocking, and definitely not at this time of night.
Once my shock subsides, I realize it’s probably Sheriff Corbin wanting to pass along some of his wife’s cooking. He does that from time to time, and I’m always appreciative.
“Hold on!” I holler. “I’m coming.”
I stand up and edge around the side of the table so I can grab a sweatshirt to throw over my tank top since I’m not wearing a bra.
“Birdie?”
Ben’s voice stops me in my tracks and I spin on my heels, making my way for the door before I think better of it.
I fling it open, half surprised, half relieved to see him leaning against my doorjamb wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, his hair still damp from a shower.
He looks up and his brown eyes pierce me.
There’s no joy there. No relief in the fact that I opened my door to him.
There’s accusation in his narrowed gaze and furrowed scowl.
“You’re a Goldwater Scholar,” he blurts accusingly.
I rear back in surprise.
“What?”
“Yeah. Not just that,” he says, pushing off the doorjamb and making his way inside my trailer without my permission. “A National Merit Scholar too, and a Fulbright Fellow.”
He brushes right by me, jostling me to the side.
There’s no time to assess the fact that I’m very inappropriately dressed. Shorty shorts and a flimsy tank top don’t hide a damn thing. Worse, my hair’s still air drying from my shower, starting to curl and riot.
I cross my arms over my chest as if that’ll help—not—and listen as he keeps on ranting.
“You had a full ride to Caltech. There’re a dozen articles about you online. A lot of them are about Professor Olmsted, but your work is mentioned too.”
“Are you done yet?” I say, my voice dripping with sass.
“No,” he steps forward, his finger pointing at me and everything. “They were throwing grant money your way trying to keep you there. Jesus, it sounds like they would have changed the name of the damn school for you if you’d asked them to.”
I roll my eyes and look away. “So you know how to use Google, good for you.”
“Birdie, what the hell are you doing here?” he asks, stepping forward until his shoes brush my toes. Still, I don’t look at him.
“I already told you that,” I say through clenched teeth, keeping my face to the side.
“Yeah? Taking care of your grandmother? No one else can help you with that?”
I hate that my lip quivers as he needles the most sensitive part of my humanity. No, Ben. There’s no one else to help me. There is no one but my nan and me. Is that what he wants to hear? Is that what he wants me to admit?
’Cause if so, I’ll tell him.
I’ll give him this part of me and make him feel the weight of being Raelynn Birdie, if only for a second. I turn to him, my gaze hot and angry, and I let him have it.
“You go snoopin’ around online, figure you know shit about me, and then show up here like this? Pissy as all get-out? I already told you why I’m here, Ben. You know the answer to all these questions you’re asking. I’m a girl with the oldest story in the book. Teenage parents who loved drugs and drinkin’ more than dealing with a newborn. They left me with my nan and never came back. Last I heard, my mom was shacked up with some meth head near Jersey and my dad was locked up.”
The shift is so subtle on his features, someone else might miss it. The pain there, the pity he feels for me. It’s not obvious, and he’s trying so hard to keep it tamped down. I get some sick, twisted satisfaction out of doing this to him, dumping my life right over his head and making him wallow in the waste like I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember.
“I have fifty dollars to my name, no family, no one to lean on except for my grandma. I’m doing everything I can to take care of her the way she took care of me. You think I—”
“I can help you, Birdie.”
That…
That is not what I was expecting.
I sneer, taking full offense at his gallantry. It only pisses me off more. I’m not a damsel.
“I don’t want your help.”
“You just said you have no one.”
“I have Nan,” I spit out bitterly.
His face falls like his heart is breaking for me. When he speaks again, his tone is gentle and goading.
“She can’t help you anymore, Birdie.”
I’m not ready to hear that, even if deep down I know he might be right. I’m not in a place to accept that fact.
My eyes cut to the trailer door behind him, and I start pushing him back toward it. “Get out, Ben.”