Chapter 82

“I wanted to surprise you.”

My hand was shaking. My knees collapsed, and I fell to them, onto the cold wet blacktop behind the diner.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

* * * *

“Eventually, I apologized to him, too, for pretending I was okay, when I wasn’t. It didn’t do any good. He, um, thinks the stunt was the dumbest thing ever.”

“Maybe it was, considering what you’d recently been through.”

I grunted.

“We can’t put Archie on a pedestal. He’s human.”

“Yeah. See, part of the reason I can’t believe any of the things I fantasize happened between me and him ever could is because how could he have any kind of feelings for me other than resentment?”

“The only time you want to talk about you is when you don’t like what I say about Archie?”

“My session. I can talk about anything I damned well please.”