Roadside Attractions

Five

BLIND RIVER, ON

Sunny’s Diner, the aforementioned burger place, appears to be a Blind River hotspot.

The place is packed, something I imagine can be attributed to the Blues Fest that Marty mentioned. We’ve snagged one of the last available tables, sitting across from each other in a low-lit booth in the back corner of the restaurant while we wait for our food.

I’m thankful for the commotion around us, the hum of chatter, the sounds of the kitchen, the staff hollering orders—it’s almost enough to combat the cloud of discomfort that’s been following us since Wyatt realized I was crying.

Almost.

This is the quietest he’s been. He pays a great deal of attention to his phone, acting like whatever is on the screen is extremely important, but I don’t miss the way his eyes dart up to my face every few seconds when he thinks I’m too busy watching the rerun of a hockey game on the TV above us .

I hate it—the awkwardness, the fact that someone besides Noor saw me crying at all. It’s embarrassing. I always did my best not to cry in front of Roman, a relatively easy feat, considering I’m not much of a crier in the first place.

Breathing out through my nose, I level Wyatt with a hard look. He pretends not to notice, though I can tell he does by the way he narrows his eyes, hunches his shoulders, and leans closer to his phone screen. I don’t know if he thinks he’s being nonchalant, or if he’s not bringing up the elephant in the room to make me feel better, but either way, he won’t be winning an Oscar for this performance.

Finally, when I’ve had enough of the silence, I reach forward, pluck his phone out of his grasp, and set it down on the table between us.

He blinks up at me in surprise. “What was that for?”

“You don’t have to treat me differently because you saw me get emotional,” I say flatly. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t think I was treating you differently,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine. I was.” Leaning back against the booth, he removes his ball cap, dragging a hand through his hair to erase the indent it left. “I’m just. . . trying not to say anything stupid. I don’t want to make it worse.”

I make a face. “I don’t expect you to comfort me, or talk to me about it. I’d be overjoyed if we could drop the whole thing and forget it ever happened, but I can’t do that if you keep walking on eggshells around me. Just stop being weird.”

His features contort in offence, and he opens his mouth, presumably to deny being weird despite all of the evidence, when our server stops by, depositing our dishes before walking away briskly. My mouth waters at the sight of my chicken sandwich and fries, and I remind myself that this is what I came here for. When I agreed to come, I didn’t anticipate it being quite this awkward, but the food softens the blow a little bit.

We’ve fallen into silence again, allowing the clammer of the room to overtake us as I avoid looking at Wyatt, popping fries into my mouth methodically. It goes on like this for a while, and I contemplate finding a hole I can crawl into. The idea that he might see me differently now, that I showed weakness in front of him, makes a pit form in my stomach. Turns out acknowledging the elephant actually makes things worse, not better.

I’m debating asking our server for a takeout box and walking back to the inn by myself to put this night to an end when Wyatt speaks.

“The only thing I wanted to know was whether or not you’re okay,” he says. His voice is light, unassuming. He keeps his eyes down, reaching for the salt shaker, but the words cause me to still.

“I already told you I was fine,” I say, voice quiet and lacking conviction.

“You did,” he agrees, bringing his dark gaze up to mine. “But I don’t believe you.”

My appetite spoils. I pull a napkin apart gently, just to give my fingers something to do. “I don’t really want to talk about it with you.”

“I’m the only one here,” he says simply. “And we have a whole lot of time to kill. Might as well go for it.”

I ponder his offer, having trouble reconciling this Wyatt with the one who flirts with anything with a pulse and constantly wears a shit-eating grin. The one I’ve been bickering with all day. I don’t know how to deal with Wyatt when he’s being nice.

He senses my hesitation. “I’ll start the Roman-bashing, then,” he states bluntly. “You know how we lived together before he lived with you? He asked me to lend him money all the time. For rent, bills, meals, and everything else. He kept a running total on his phone and assured me he would pay me back. But he never did, so I finally cut him off. That was right around when he decided he was going to move in with you.”

The words sting, phrased so flippantly, as if not being able to use Wyatt for his primary source of income was Roman’s only reason for wanting to move in with me, not because he wanted to build a home together. Apparently, he just needed someone else to depend on .

When we lived together, he’d been able to handle his day-to-day expenses for the most part, but rent was a struggle; I always ended up paying more than my fair share. I’d purchased most of our furniture, and date nights were usually on me. But I’d been okay with it. He was a starving artist, and I was supporting his dreams. It was supposed to be temporary.

“I wouldn’t get off his case about paying me back, so he promised me he was working on it, and that he would have all the money for me by the end of this summer. And then he took off.”

“Did he tell you he was leaving?”

Wyatt smiles sardonically. “Via text, yes. No mention of any money, just that he was moving on, and that we could catch up in the future someday, ‘wherever life takes us.’” He rolls his eyes. “I’ve known the guy since we were kids, and that was all I got.”

A bitter laugh escapes my lips. “I got a note.”

His eyebrows shoot up as he leans forward. “A note ?” he repeats, aghast.

I push my plate away with a scowl, appetite totally gone now. “Some bullshit about finding himself, calling me the brightest star in his sky.”

Roman had always referred to me as his star, ever since he realized what my name meant. I used to think it was sweet, though the excessive celestial metaphors in his poetry did get a bit repetitive.

“He ended the note by telling me not to text him,” I say.

Wyatt blows out a breath, shaking his head rigidly. “What a prick.”

I shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable. On the TV overhead, the game has finished, and I stare at the celebratory crowd without really paying attention. I think this is the most civil conversation we’ve had to date.

“We may never get justice for how he’s treated us,” Wyatt begins, “but this trip isn’t over until he’s paid us both back, even if I have to haul his thieving ass to an ATM.”

“It’d be great if he would pay me the rent he owes me until the end of our lease,” I mutter. “We committed to our apartment for two years. ”

“Jesus. I don’t know why he insists on screwing people over like that.”

“How has he survived this long if he’s never had to fend for himself?”

I’ve always been good at taking care of myself, because I had to learn how to do it from a young age. In turn, I know how to care for other people. My dad, whoever he is, has never been in the picture, and my mother could hardly look after herself, let alone another human being, so my grandma had to step in. After she passed, it was just Mom and me. Mom, who couldn’t hold down a job, or keep herself out of trouble. I had no choice but to become the head of our household. I got a part-time job as soon as I was old enough and worked every opportunity I could to help us stay on top of bills. Studied hard so I could earn scholarships.

Roman just happened to become one of those people I had to take care of. I supported him through unemployment and minimum-wage jobs, encouraging him to keep up with his poetry and follow his dreams. But I never considered that he might’ve been taking advantage of that.

Wyatt hesitates, glancing at me warily. “Look, I promised him I’d never talk about his past, even with you but. . . his parents are rich as fuck. They give him anything he asks for. He claims he wants to be financially independent because he had a falling out with them years ago. But he always goes back to their piggy bank, and they’re so eager to patch things up that they let him.”

“You’re shitting me.” I sit back in my seat, disoriented. “He told me his parents weren’t a part of his life anymore. . . but he didn’t mention they were rich. Quite the opposite, actually. He told me he came from ‘humble beginnings’ and had a rough childhood. It was something that drew me to him, something we bonded over. God. The lies this man pulled out of his ass continue to baffle me.” I laugh once without humour. My throat is tight. “Why lend him the money, then?”

“I know it was stupid of me,” he says, sighing defeatedly. “But Roman and I. . . he’s like a brother to me. That’s how it is with family. They may get on your last nerves, and you may hate them at times, but at the end of the day, you’d do anything to help them succeed.”

I don’t say anything, toying with my napkin, and he misreads my silence as judgement.

“Obviously, I don’t feel that way about him anymore,” he states. “He gets zero sympathy from me.”

Wyatt seems to try to brush off the heaviness of the conversation with a humourless laugh, but it doesn’t work. Under the casual mask he always wears, it’s clear that he’s hurt. Roman leaving him like this is a huge betrayal. The two of us are reeling in his wake, though we each loved him differently, and for different amounts of time. For a moment, I feel a brief sense of kinship.

His eyes flicker to mine, clearing a little. “You’re not contributing very much to the Roman-bashing session.”

I can feel all of my rage, my sadness, bubbling beneath the surface, eager for an outlet, words on the tip of my tongue—my feelings of betrayal, my newly awakened insecurities—but I shove it all down. “I don’t want to talk about that bastard anymore tonight,” I say. If I start, I won’t stop. Or worse, I’ll cry in front of Wyatt again.

“Buzzkill,” he teases. His gaze lingers on my face, and he seems to choose his next words carefully. “Look, he doesn’t deserve your tears, okay?”

“Stop being nice. You’re creeping me out.”

His lips twitch into a smirk. “You think I’m nice?”

“That is not what I said. You being nice feels like when the high school jock stops being a dick to the nerdy girl because he was dared to by his friends.”

“Moore, I’ll have you know,” he says, folding his arms over his chest, “that I am generally a very nice person. You just seem to bring out the worst in me. I think that says more about your character than it does mine.”

“What a coincidence,” I fire back. “I’m even meaner than usual when I’m with you, so I wonder what that says about your character.”

He gives me a tight smile. “Look at that. Lucky that we’re stuck together for the foreseeable future.”

We pay our separate bills and head back to the inn. This time, the quiet that falls over us is less uncomfortable and a little more amicable, a new development I’m not sure I know how to deal with.

Once we’re tucked away inside our respective rooms, I lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if wherever Roman is, he’s struggling to sleep too. If he’s even thought about me at all since he left. I hate that the space beside me feels so empty, like the lack of his presence is screaming at me. But when you’ve grown so accustomed to someone being there next to you, to being able to roll over and rest your head on their chest and fall asleep to them stroking your hair, it’s hard to adjust.

Even after discovering that your entire relationship was built on lies.

Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I dig through my bag for my earbuds, allowing the audiobook narrator to lure me into a fitful sleep.