Page 60 of Dark Knight
“Sure.” She snickers and shakes her head but still won’t look at me. “I heard he was being kind of weird about what he does now. Like it’s all some big secret.”
“I know. I just… I just wanted you to know that. And it’s not your fault,” I add, seeing as I’m an idiot who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. “I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong. He treats me like that, too.”
“Like what?” Now she stops after plopping a pair of cans on the shelf, turning to me. “How did he treat me? How would you know? Did he tell you about it?”
I am making a complete mess of this. “Okay, so maybe I listened from upstairs. Not because of you, because of him. I have to spend all this time with him, though I don’t know anything about him. And whenever I try, he shuts me down. I just wanted to know if he would do the same thing to you or if maybe I could learn a little something about him.”
“Congratulations, now you know. Romero treated me the same way.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as she goes back to work. “I know how it feels. It’s the worst, isn’t it? When you just want to talk to somebody, and they act like you’re the enemy.”
“Ten years.” She stops again, staring at the shelf. I get the feeling she sees something else. The past. “He was gone for ten years. He didn’t say goodbye. Nobody knew what happened to him. And then he just… shows up with no explanation, no hello, no anything.” Finally, her voice trembles with emotion.
“He’s infuriating.”
“Yeah. He’s infuriating.” She stares at the floor, and her breath is shaky. “What do you want to know about him?”
“Oh, no. You don’t have to…”
“No, really. What do you want to know? Because seriously, screw him. He left me at probably the worst time possible.” Her voice shakes again, and I wish I had never come over here. It’s not worth whatever this is doing to her.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, eyeing me with a shrewd expression that makes me feel sort of exposed. “So, you two work together?”
“Not exactly. He works for my dad.” What am I thinking? Nobody’s supposed to know anything about me, or us. “Please, don’t tell anybody I told you that. He would—”
“I get it. And the guys around here are worse than old ladies, gossiping and shit.” Still, she arches an eyebrow. “Your dad, he’s got money?”
“How would you know?”
“Your clothes, the watch he was wearing, the car in the driveway.”
Good point. “I needed to get out of town for a little while after some bad things happened, and he’s just here to ensure I’m safe. That’s all it is. He hates me, and he hates having to be here. Still, it was the only safe place, I guess.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty safe around here. More like dead.”
“But I kind of get the feeling it’s hard for him to be here. He would never tell me, obviously.”
“I was thinking it was just me.”
“No, it’s everybody.” And now I’m sort of glad I approached her, considering I didn’t think about it that way. Whoever she is and whatever she’s been through, I feel sorry for her – and we have him in common.
“I didn’t think I would ever see him in that house again.” She chokes a little. “I didn’t think I would ever go there again. Just being on the porch was hard. The last time I was there, it wasn’t good.”
“Oh.” What happened? I could crawl out of my skin; I want to ask so badly. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“Did he…”
“Hurt me? Oh, that came after.” Bitterness seeps into her words. “When I went back, he was gone. Everything was different. I think I was in shock. His mom told me he left and she didn’t know when he’d be back. She wouldn’t tell me where he was or who he was with. I was the enemy all of a sudden.”
“What about his dad? Did he… I mean, was he…”
“His dad was a fucking monster.”
I got the feeling there was something there. Something terrible, something dark, thanks to what Mrs. Cooper told me. But to hear it like that, with all that emotion behind it, makes my head snap back. “Romero really hasn’t spoken about him.”