“I can do it,” she replied in a sleepy voice.
“I know you can. But I can see it better.” It wasn’t the best excuse, but I wanted to do this.
She lay there as I applied the soothing cream over her battered lip.
Last night after I’d told her she’d call me her hero one day she hadn’t said anything else. The room had gone silent until the soft sounds of her sleeping met my ears. I’d watched her sleep and reassured myself she was okay. I had found her, and everything was going to be okay now.
No more letting her push me away. She could push all she wanted, but I wasn’t letting my damn ego and pride get in the way. Trisha wasn’t trying to make me prove anything to her. She wasn’t moved by jealousy. Those weren’t games she played.
If I wanted her, and I did, I would have to do this on her terms. She didn’t trust me. She was cautious and expected nothing from anyone. Being treated poorly was what she expected. So if I acted like a jackass, she accepted it as fate. All the stupid shit I’d done trying to get her to give in had only pushed her further away from me.
“Is Krit awake?” she asked.
“Yeah, he’s in the living room watching television,” I told her.
She frowned. “Fandora?”
“Not here. Never came home last night.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Do you have a way to get home?”
Here we go. She was now ready to kick me out. She was protecting Krit. I understood her now. “I have a truck that Dewayne left me. But I don’t need it. I’m not leaving.”
She didn’t say anything at first, so I stood up and started folding up the comforter and blanket I’d used last night.
“Fandora will come home today. She will expect you to be gone, so she’ll return,” she said as if she were warning me away from something I didn’t already know.
“It’s her trailer. I expect she’ll come back,” I agreed.
I put my bedding in the corner neatly.
“She won’t like you being here.”
She’d be pissed. I expected that. But I wasn’t scared of a crazy-ass evil bitch. “I’m sure she won’t. But she’ll have to get over it.” I didn’t wait for her to argue. “I got a Gatorade out of my truck last night and put it in the fridge. I’m going to go get that and let you take your pills. Then I’ll fix you something to eat. What sounds good? You want something soft?”
“Uh, yeah,” she replied, frowning at me.
“I’ll see what I can find. You like eggs?”
“Fandora doesn’t buy eggs. Toast and butter or cereal.”
She wasn’t arguing with me. I felt like I had won a prize.
“I’ll bring both. We will see which one works best.”
I left her in there before she could decide she needed to kick me out again.
Krit looked up at me when I walked into the living room. “She awake?” he asked.
“Yeah. She needs to eat. What’s her favorite?”
Krit shrugged. “She doesn’t have a favorite. We don’t have a large selection. She’s just happy when we get food. Lunch at school is the highlight of her day.”
The kid didn’t mean to say shit that sliced a f**king hole in my stomach, but goddamn, that was hard to swallow. Trisha liked the damn cafeteria food because she was hungry. Shit, that made me furious. What girl doesn’t have a favorite food?
Preston getting excited about Mrs. T’s cookies made a helluva lot more sense now. He always took some home to the boys and Daisy May now that she had teeth. He had this life too. But he had us. Trisha didn’t have anyone.
She hadn’t had anyone. She did now.