As I touch the doorknob, I realize I’m still in my nightgown, but it doesn’t stop me from throwing open the door. My heart ticks even faster—but it’s ’cause Roy stands before me, in the same clothes as yesterday. “What the hell do you want?”
“Bonn, can I come in?”
“No,” I say. The cool air sends goose bumps up my arms, down my legs. I cross my arms, hiding how the cold affects my breasts beneath my nightgown. “I already know what you’re going to say: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for gambling, for getting caught with a girl, for those horribly mean things I said to you. I’m even more sorry for leaving you for a goddamn year.’”
I leave out how my blood is also pumping ’cause he ratted out Clyde. I want to keep this ’bout us.
Roy sighs, scratches the scruff on his jawline. “But it’s true. I am sorry. You’ve got to believe me.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it, ambushing me yesterday like that.”
Buster’s footsteps stomp up behind me. I lay a hand on his arm, stopping him from storming past me.
“Buster,” Roy says, “tell your sister she has to believe me.”
My brother’s expression screams Not a chance, but he calmly says, “I think Bonnelyn can make decisions for herself.”
I smile at my brother before turning back to Roy. “I can talk for myself, too, but I reckon you’ve got it all wrong. Here’s what you should be sayin’: ‘I know there’s no explanation good enough for lying and cheating, for abandoning you, for putting you in a position where you had to walk away from what you want. So, I’m going to leave, for good this time.’”
“Yes. Yes to all of that, ’cept the part ’bout me leaving again.” He keeps his tired eyes down as he says, “This is the first place I came after the police let me go, the only place I wanted to go. I left last year ’cause pride clouded my judgment and made me say things I didn’t mean. Then I was scared you wouldn’t forgive me. I didn’t want to come back ’til I could give you the world. But the market took everything from me, and then some.” He looks up, sincerity in his eyes. “In that moment, I realized I could lose everything, but not you. I can’t lose you, Bonnelyn.”
I uncross my arms and widen the door’s opening. “So you’re done gambling? You’re done drinking, and cheating, and lying?”
Roy steps forward. “Yes. Yes, to all of it.”
“You’re ready to give me the world?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything, Bonnelyn.”
“Good,” I say. I open the door farther.
“Bonn?” my brother says.
I wave off Buster. “’Cause, Roy, whatever sweet girl you’re with next doesn’t deserve to be with the Roy Thornton I was foolish enough to marry.”
Using all my body weight, I slam the door closed in Roy’s face.
Behind me, Buster whispers, “Damn.”
I stand there, collecting my thoughts. I spent the past year wallowing over Roy, and for what? I loved Roy the boy. As a man and a husband, he leaves much to be desired. He only came back, pockets empty, ’cause he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t love me. He loves the idea of me.
Like how I once loved the idea of him. I know this now. Hell, I convinced myself I needed Roy. But I don’t. I slammed that door, and Roy’s return only punctuates how my heart is pulling me toward starting over with Clyde.
“Buster, watch the window. Let me know when Roy’s gone.”
I rush to my bedroom to put on clothes, any clothes. Billie sits up in bed, rubbing her eyes. I kiss her forehead, feeling euphoric. She gives me a funny look, probably being that I’m springing ’round the room.
“He’s gone!” Buster says from the other room.
I slide on a hat to hide my disheveled hair and race out the door, grabbing my bike.
With each cycle of my legs, I feel liberated. Clyde’s lyrics may’ve been ’bout how I saved him, but if I wrote my own, it’d be how people come into your life when you need ’em most, and save you back. You save each other, like a partnership. Nothin’ one-sided ’bout it.
I hop off my bike at the police station and lean against a fence ’cross the street. Clyde waited for me outside my school, and I’m going to wait for him now. Taking one deep breath after another, I tap my foot. If Roy was released not long ago, I reckon Clyde should be next. He’s got to be next.
But my shadow gets smaller and smaller, ’til I’m standing on it, and people taking their lunch breaks crowd the sidewalk. I lean left and right, maintaining a clear sight of the station’s door, and begin to second-guess that Clyde will be emerging. That officer, Jacobs, had been looking for him. What if they keep him?
Clyde walks out of the door, and I straighten, question forgotten. As if he was hoping I’d be waiting, his eyes—one blackened—immediately find mine from the other side of the street. I’m ’cross that street in a matter of seconds, cars be damned, and stop at the base of the station’s stairs.
Clyde strolls down, the laziest of smiles on his face. “My goodness, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
“I wish I could say the same for you.”
He hoots with laugher and tugs on his dirty shirt, then his wrinkled trousers. “I got nothin’ to hide from ya.”
That sentiment seeps deep into my bones, thinkin’ of the two-faced jerks from my past and how Roy is a real-life Jekyll and Hyde. I gently touch Clyde’s bruised cheek. “Are you hurt?”
“From the pigs inside? Nah. In fact, I woke with a smile on my face, happy I was there when Roy came back for you.”
My insides warm, and I impishly smack his chest. “Why didn’t you run from the police, you fool? I know ’bout your ‘heat rule.’”
Clyde wraps his arm ’round my shoulders and leads me back toward my bike. “That rule don’t apply to you, won’t ever. I wasn’t going anywhere ’til I knew you wouldn’t be left alone with Roy.”
The seriousness in Clyde’s voice stops me from smiling. That he stayed for me is exactly what I wanted to hear, needed to hear. But there’s more I need to hear. “Clyde, I have to know why, specifically, they were looking for you.”
Precious seconds pass while Clyde leads us out of the street, seconds when my confidence at coming here for Clyde deflates. He squares my shoulders to his, looks me straight in the eye. “I’ve looted some places ’round town, like the lumberyard. But—”
“But why?” That kind of theft shakes me more than cars. Automobiles are a luxury ’round here. Those people are doing all right for themselves. And Clyde gives ’em back when he’s done. “Why, Clyde?”