You Make Me (Blurred Lines #1)(29)
Author: Erin McCarthy

I’m really sorry. I mean that. I don’t want you hurt.

Then another one, right after.

If you need a friend, just a friend, I’m here.

That meant a lot. More than I could possibly verbalize. I believed he cared more about my happiness than his own.

Thanks. <3

I couldn’t say more than that. I wasn’t ready to talk. I couldn’t share my feelings about Ethan with Heath. They were too private, too separate. They had different spaces in my heart.

Pushing open the door to the hardware store, the bell rang to announce my entrance. The man behind the counter looked up, then pulled his reading glasses off his nose. “Cat?” he asked, sounding astonished.

“Hey, Billy,” I said, feeling sheepish. “How are you?” Billy had been my father’s best friend since childhood. He’d been like an uncle to me throughout my childhood. He had always lived on the mainland, like my father had until he’d married my mother.

“Good.” He came from around the counter, studying me carefully. “How are you? What brings you up here?”

There was no hug, but I didn’t expect that. Billy wasn’t one for touching. “I came to see my mother.” I wasn’t going to tell him about the breakup. It would just make him uncomfortable. He was old school and he didn’t talk about feelings.

“Yeah? How’s she getting on?”

Billy had a heavy accent, a true “Mainah.” I’d been gone from home long enough now that it seemed even more pronounced. I was used to Ethan and Aubrey and the other students, who had a more relaxed accent. For some reason, it just added to my melancholy.

“She’s fine,” I told him in response to his question about my mother. Billy wouldn’t want the truth.

“So I ran into Brian the other day,” I said, coming at the heart of what I wanted to ask in as circumspect a way as possible. “He asked me for money.”

Billy shrugged in his flannel shirt. “Doesn’t surprise me. He’s more fond of the bottle than he is showing up for work.”

I touched a display of batteries, running my fingers over the plastic coverings. “Has the house sold?” I tried to sound casual, but my heart was beating painfully in my chest. Tiffany would know if my parent’s house had sold definitively but she wouldn’t know about any offers that might be on the property. Billy was more likely to have that kind of information as executor of my father’s will.

The house had been given to Brian.

Something that I didn’t understand and I had trouble not being angry with my father about, even though I knew I shouldn’t hold that type of animosity with me in his death.

“No. The house hasn’t sold. Your brother hasn’t paid the property taxes either, Cat. He owes a fair amount of money. The house may not be worth much, but the land has a good view.”

I hoped it never sold. I would rather Brian lose it when he couldn’t pay the taxes than cash in on it and blow every cent on stupid choices. It wasn’t worth much, but Brian didn’t deserve any of it, and my father’s hard work didn’t deserve to go down Brian’s throat in the form of rum. It was hard not to feel resentful though. I would have used that money for my education. It had hurt then and it hurt now that my father had trusted his son more than the daughter who had loved him.

“It does have a good view.” I gave Billy a small smile. “And bats.”

He gave a rusty laugh. “I bet it does.”

“I’d better catch the ferry.” I tilted my head in the direction of the bay. “I’m heading over to see Tiffany.”

“Good to see you.” He gave my arm an awkward pat.

And Aubrey wondered why I didn’t share my feelings. No one in my entire life ever had. No one except for Heath. He had shared everything with me.

“Goodbye, Billy. Tell Sheri I said hi.”

“Will do, kiddo.”

I caught the ferry, noticing that the faces were the same. Older, but the same. Both working the boat and taking passage on it. I got curious stares, people who knew who I was but not me personally, and were unwilling to speak to me. But neither did they talk about me, whispering to each other, and I welcomed the reticence of island residents. They minded their own business and let me tend to mine. They would talk, but it would be later, behind closed doors. For the first time ever, I appreciated that, especially after hearing the girls back at the house not even attempting to be covert in their gossip.

They were supposed to be my friends, yet they hadn’t hesitated to talk about me. Some had even taken just a smidge of satisfaction in seeing me taken down a notch. Girls were competitive without even meaning to be, and even though they had liked me, I had still scored the big prize in Ethan.

That made me ultimately a target.

But here, there was silence. Solace. It was cold, windy, but it felt good. I sucked in the ocean scent, staring over the railing at the dark waves crashing into the rocky shore as we pulled away. I hadn’t been home since the funeral.

It felt weird to be doing it now. I hadn’t expected to ever go back, honestly. A few times a year I visited Mom and Tiff would take the ferry in to spend some time with me, and that had been enough. I hadn’t wanted to actually set foot in Vinalhaven.

But now it felt like the only place I could go. It was the only place that was lonelier than me, and we understood each other.

Tiffany opened the door to her grandmother’s clapboard house, the paint peeling from the salt water and wind, and stepped outside onto the front stoop. I could hear shouting from inside.

“What’s she saying?” I asked, leaning around Tiffany’s shoulder to see inside the house.

“She’s just calling me a bitch. She says her oatmeal is too hot.” Tiffany rolled her eyes. “She says I’m trying to kill her. Who ever died from a roof of the mouth burn? Whatever.”

It was probably the only thing that could have made me feel worse that day. She didn’t deserve to be treated like that. “Tiff, you need to go to college. Seriously. The neighbors will look in on her. It’s not fair that you’re stuck here and she treats you like shit.”

“I’m not wired that way. I can’t just leave her. But I did apply to URock. Maybe I can leave her for a few hours a few days a week, or take online classes for awhile at least. I was thinking about getting a nursing degree.”

God knew she was skilled enough already taking care of people. “That’s a great idea. You look adorable, by the way. Love the hair.”