Bram's face when he was told the love of his life was dead," Dylan retorted. "What made me less is being back in this goddamn place, where I have to remember that. Where I have to remember everything." He didn't even know the next words were coming, but they slid out, cold and slick as ice cubes. "And by forcing me to come home, Kitty, what - who - made me less is you."
Maybe he would have wished the words back, maybe he would have even called them back, except he didn't have time. Not when Kitty stepped closer to him, those guileless eyes now glittering. "Well, then, maybe we're even, Dylan, because you've made a fool of me. Here I was, feeling sorry for that younger Dylan, forced eight years ago to realize what the town had led him to believe was wrong. Forced to realize Hot Water's Golden Boy couldn't turn every situation into a total winner.
"But the fact is, you've never realized that, have you?" She laughed, the sound devoid of humor. "You still don't. For all your big talk about disregarding town-conferred identity, you've completely bought into yours. You must truly consider yourself capable of perfection, or else you wouldn't continue to punish yourself with this pointless self-exile."
He thought he should defend himself, but his mouth didn't seem to be working. Kitty's, however, was doing just fine.
"I hate to break it to you, darling," she continued, "but eight years ago you were merely an arrogant, ego-inflated young man with perfect SAT scores and a stack of athletic trophies. You were not God. And nothing's changed since."
Punish yourself. Self-exile. Ego-inflated. Arrogant. The words whirled in his brain, accusation after accusation sounding louder than all the things he'd called himself for the past eight years. He shook his head, shaking the words away to refocus on his icy fury.
"Just fix it, Kitty," Dylan said, grabbing her arm. "You can call me names later, but just fix this, now."
She held her ground. "Dylan, only you can fix this."
His head was pounding. "I'll leave. Take off. Get out of here today. Now."
Her eyes still hard and bright, she pulled her arm very deliberately from his grasp. "Then you'll want to sign this before you go. So I can get our divorce." She held out her clipboard. "Sign it and you'll be free."
The paper was nothing, his signature, the divorce, the marriage, it was all nothing compared to the hammers in his head and the sick, cold feeling in his belly. Without looking at her, he wrenched the clipboard from her and signed.
In another moment she was gone.
"Ouch." Honor's voice was full of sympathy.
Dylan glanced at her, but she was gazing after Kitty. "Don't tell me you feel sorry for her?"
"Of course." Honor cocked her head to look past his shoulder. "And I bet the judge agrees with me."
Dylan spun around to find his father standing behind him. The guilty expression on D. B.'s face churned the bile in Dylan's belly. "You. Do you know something about this park-naming too?"
"I know you can't punish Kitty for it."
Punish. There was that word again.
The judge rubbed his jaw and Dylan noticed the shadows beneath his eyes. "I've known about the Odd Fellows' naming the park since the committee dreamed it up," D. B. said.
Dylan didn't want to believe it, so he made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Well, you didn't know how I - "
"I did. I knew exactly how uncomfortable it would make you. But I didn't want you to run away from Hot Water again, Dylan. I wanted you to give home a chance."
"Run away? I didn't exactly run away, Judge - "
"Dad. I'm your father, Dylan. Though God knows I wasn't my best at it eight years ago. But I'd like to start making amends now."
Dylan stared at him. "You're not making any sense. You didn't do anything wrong."
The judge ran his hands over his hair in a gesture of frustration Dylan recognized as one they shared. "I tried not to think so. But I've got to face the truth now, Dylan. I've got to get it right with you, first of all."
Dylan took a hurried step back. "Another time. Right now, I have to get out of here and - " He broke off as his next backward stride had him tromping all over Honor's feet.
Wincing, she pushed him off her and toward the judge. "Give me a chance to stop the park thing, Dylan. You finish this