Mind Games

“I ruined it. I ruined it.”

“No. Here, give me that.” Keeping an arm around Thea, Lucy took the egg basket. “You’ll sit down, come on with me, and we’ll sit down. You’ll tell me. We’ll fix it.”

“We can’t. I’ll be all right. I just need to … I don’t know.”

“You had a fight with Ty.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t look. We’ll just sit and be awhile.”

“I wanted too much. I started to want too much. I should know better.”

When they reached the porch, Thea just sat on the steps. She’d taken all the steps she could. She’d take more later.

“Everything seemed so right, Grammie. I didn’t think or look beyond that. I didn’t want to. I was making breakfast. I was going to make Bray a Spider-Man pancake. I was thinking of that, and how good I felt. How happy.”

She had to breathe, in and out. She just had to breathe.

“Ty’s drinking coffee, and it all felt so good and right and easy. Bray comes in, and he’s upset. He can’t find his truck. Grave Digger, the one that does tricks. And he and Ty are talking. Bray said somebody stole it, and Ty said we’ll look for it after breakfast, and how it’s gone missing for a few days.

“He’s such a happy boy, Grammie, and he was so upset, starting to cry, and I just didn’t think. I was careless. I told him where to find it.”

Because her eyes ached, Thea pressed her fingers to them.

“I looked and I saw him playing with it in the library Ty’s setting up, and how he heard Bunk coming, and dropped it in this box of books that Ty hadn’t unpacked.”

On a sigh, she laid her head—no longer throbbing—on Lucy’s shoulder. “Bray was so happy when he found it, and Ty told him to take it up to his room and play. Then I turned around, and saw Ty’s face, and knew I’d made a mistake. Everything that was good and right and easy died away. He was so angry, so cold with it.

“How could I know where to find that toy unless I’d been in the house when I shouldn’t? I hadn’t been there since he opened that box of books.”

“Did you explain?”

“I couldn’t. He wouldn’t hear me. He thinks I broke his trust.” She squeezed her eyes tight. “And maybe I did. But he thinks I used his little boy, I used his feelings, so he wouldn’t hear me.”

“You’d never do that, never.” Tears thickened her voice as Lucy held Thea close. “He’ll come to realize that.”

“He told me to get out, to stay away from Bray, from him, to keep y’all away.”

“We’ll give him a little time to simmer down, then I’ll talk to him.”

“No, Grammie.” Shaking her head, she breathed in and out, she looked up at the hills.

“No, it’s not a misunderstanding, it’s not a … spat. It’s who we are. Both of us.

“Both of us,” she repeated. “He thought that of me, thought of me sneaking into his house, going through his things, using that sweet little boy. Using sex. That he could think that of me, it’s worse, so much worse than understanding what I have and thinking I’m a freak. I know what that feels like, and this is worse.”

She reached for Lucy’s hand. “And for him? He’s been betrayed before, so he doesn’t give that trust easily. He gave it to me, and I betrayed him. Worse, I betrayed the most precious thing in his life. Braydon.”

“But you didn’t, darling.”

“Didn’t I?”

The facts lined up in front of her, and she wouldn’t deny them.

“We’ve been together awhile now, since summer. But I never told him what I have. I didn’t want to look ahead, so I didn’t. I didn’t want to tell him and have him look at me like something was twisted inside me.

“He trusted me, but I didn’t trust him. Not enough. Which is worse?”