Page 49 of Sunday Morning
“I’m Mr. Cory.” He lifted his eyebrows.
“You’re something, but not a Mister. Barely a human.”
“I feel your anger. It’s frustrating when someone does something so ruthless and unimaginable.”
“What is your problem? How did you even see that? And it wasnotremotely close to what you did to me. And this won’t come off, YOU BIG JERK!” I yelled, jabbing my boob.
“If revenge isn’t memorable, then it’s not really revenge. Is it? That will be on there for a while. It will be memorable,” he said.
“Your brother is going to see it.” I fisted my hands at my side. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Tell him the truth. You wrote your name on something that was mine, so I wrote my name on something that’s yours. He’ll be pissed off because he only sees himself, and you’re nothing more than an accessory to his dreams. And I know this because you fucking fell in love with a guitar. And my brother has thousands of dollars saved up, but he’s never given you the one thing that makes your heart sing. He doesn’t see you. How can you take off your clothes for someone who doesn’t. Fucking. See. You?”
I slowly shook my head, but I couldn’t speak past my heart in my throat. It was easier when nobody saw me. Invisible people didn’t feel vulnerable.
Isaac made me feeleverything.
Finally, I cleared my throat and composed myself. “Beverly Whitmore ordered half a steer. I was looking for your dad.”
Isaac tossed the rag aside. “I’ll get it.” He walked past me without making eye contact.
After work,I returned the key and money bag, but I didn’t linger in case Wesley was entertaining his mistress. On my way to my car, I saw Isaac in the pasture, working on a fence. He defiled my breast, so I should have climbed into the car and hightailed it out of there, but I was the moth, and he was the flame. So I trekked toward the pasture.
“Where’s your dad?” I asked.
“He ran to town. Why? What do you need?” He tossed the wire cutter aside and glanced up at me while wiping his sweaty brow with his partially rolled-up sleeve that exposed his tattoos and muscly forearms.
“We’re low on ones and fives for the register.”
That was a tiny lie or at least a stretch, but I blurted out the first thing that came to me.
“Ya ever heard of a bank? They can exchange large bills for small bills.”
“I don’t take the money with me.”
He gathered his tools and tossed them into a bucket. “Because you can’t be trusted.”
“Is that a question? It better be a question. And the answer is... Yes. Of course, I can be trusted. I’m way more trustworthy than you are.”
“How do you figure?” He toted the bucket and a spool of steel wire toward the machine shed.
“Everyone trusted you not to write your name on my boob, but you couldn’t control yourself.”
Isaac looked over his shoulder, giving me a slow-growing smile. His teeth looked extra white because he was so tan, and he had dirt smudged along his scruffy face. Iplucked a stem of hay and pulled off the seeds, scattering them with the wind as I tried to keep a straight face.
He redirected his gaze to the barn. “He doesn’t deserve you,” he mumbled.
I barely caught it, but I didn’t think he meant for me to hear it.
“Would your dad write his name on my mom’s boob?”
“I’m not sure. Why don’t you ask him?” He opened the door to the barn.
“Don’t you think you should apologize? You’ve had all day to contemplate your insane response to what I did to youroldguitar case.”
He dropped the bucket and the spool of wire before slowly turning toward me. “How old are you?”
I parked a hand on my hip. “Eighteen. Duh, you know that.”