“Once I do thirty days here, they’ll be off my back,” she says, nibbling on her pizza.
I sit up a little straighter. What did she just say? Does she know about the bet? “What do you mean?” I ask, working to sound casual.
She sets her pizza down and picks at the crust. “You see, Jay. I told you before, no one really believes in me. I’ve never given them a reason to. I also told you I’m a trust-fund baby, right?”
“Yeah.” My stomach knots, not at all sure where this conversation is going, but I get the sense I’m not going to like it.
“Well, Dad pays my rent, and my money basically comes from odd jobs. I tend to go from one thing to another. My father won’t sign my trust fund over until he’s sure I’m on the path to success. That was a big reason I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I’m still on his insurance, and when he sees the bill, he’s going to know I’m failing.”
Tension coils in my stomach. “You’re not failing; you just got hurt.”
“That’s not how he’d see it, though.” She pushes back in her chair. “But this,” she says, her gaze moving around the old farmhouse, “coming here was my chance to prove I could do something for more than thirty days. If I don’t succeed, then he doesn’t sign the trust fund over. This is my last chance. He told me I was wasting time and money, and I begged to differ. In the end, I agreed that if I couldn’t make this work, I couldn’t make anything work, and the money gets absorbed into my father’s estate.”
“Wait, when we first met, you told me you probably wouldn’t make it through the night. You said you didn’t belong here.”
“I agreed that I probably wouldn’t stay through the night, and what I said was, ‘I realize you don’t think this is where I belong.’”
I wrack my brain, struggle to recall her exact words. When I can’t find them, I say, “You led me to believe you weren’t staying.”
“I know. I didn’t see the point in arguing it with you. Why bother trying to convince you? You saw me for what I was—a spoiled, rich city girl.”
“Jesus,” I say and scrub my chin.
“What’s wrong?”
Only everything.
“Nothing,” I blurt out and take a deep breath, trying not to hyperventilate.
She gives a big sigh. “I never used to know what I wanted to do with the money, but now…” She sits up a little straighter, a new light in her eyes. “Jay, I finally know. This is the most important job I’ve ever done, in more ways than one.” Her eyes get bigger and her voice gets louder as she continues, “I could invest in this farm, this community, in grass-fed animals and sustainability. I think this might actually be my passion, Jay, and in the winter, I could write that book.”
Equal amounts of excitement and worry hit at the same time. I open my mouth, only to close it again. How the hell can I tell her it’s a good idea? How can I not? She spent a lifetime searching for her passion, trying to stick to something, trying to prove her worth. If she leaves before the thirty days, it will come at a great cost to her, and I’m not just talking about losing her trust fund. I’m talking about losing all the confidence she’s gained here, the belief in herself.
“What do you think?” she asks, her voice wavering as I sit here in silence.
Jesus Christ, I need to tell her. Everything. From how I bet against her to how I fell for her. She’s come to mean so much to me. She’s so much more than a pampered city girl. She’s strong, independent, and caring. The fact that she made today happen for me speaks so much of her character. But if I tell her all that, she’ll hate me. Of that I’m sure. I did the one thing she said she always hated.
I looked for the worst in her and expected nothing less.
She keeps blinking up at me with hopeful eyes, and I hate myself so much, I just don’t know what to say. Christ, if I could take my ass outside and give it a beatdown, I would in a second because no matter how I shape my next words, even if I wrap them in an apology, she’s going to end up hurt, and hurting