Cat said nothing. She was miserable, and all she wanted to do was leave, but she heard the noise of a truck door outside. Al was home. Suddenly, Cat didn’t want to see him. It would hurt too much, because she hated him, and she loved him. Then the door opened, and there he was, looking startled to see her sitting there with his mother. He stood in the doorway, not moving, and his mother shoved herself off the sofa. She clucked her tongue at her son and then slapped him in the face.

Al rubbed his stinging cheek as his mother turned on her heels and left them alone. ‘What was that about?’ he said. ‘Why’d she do that?’

‘You know why.’

Al sat down on the sofa, looking like a deer frozen by car lights. ‘What’s going on? I’m sorry I haven’t called you. I’ve been busy.’

‘You’ve sure been busy,’ Cat said. ‘Anna told me what happened.’

Al swallowed hard and closed his eyes. He looked as if he’d begun to sweat through every pore simultaneously. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘All that talk. “It’s okay to wait, Cat. I want it to feel right for you. We don’t need to have sex.” Nothing but talk.’

‘Cat, I’m really sorry,’ he insisted. ‘It was one time, and it was a mistake. I never meant for anything to happen. I was over at the Grizzly Bear talking to Fred, and Anna’s car crapped out. So I took her home.’

‘You took her home and fucked her,’ Cat snapped.

Al took hold of his head with both hands. ‘Look, what do you want me to say? It just happened! She said, how about a drink? I figured, what the hell, one drink. Next thing I knew, we’d finished off a six-pack, and we started making out. It was stupid. You have to believe me, I don’t care about Anna. I care about you. I love you. You wanted me to say it? There, I said it.’

‘Yeah, because it means so much to me now,’ Cat snapped.

‘How can I make this right?’ Al asked.

‘You can’t. You can drive me home, and you can keep your mouth shut the whole way, and then you can go away and leave me alone. I don’t ever want to see you again. I wish I’d never met you.’

‘Cat, please—’

She pushed against the arms of the recliner, but she still couldn’t get up. Al jumped to his feet, took her hands gently, and helped her. As soon as she was standing, she pushed him away, not wanting him to touch her. His arms dropped uncomfortably to his sides, as if he had no place to put them.

‘I made a mistake,’ he repeated. ‘People make mistakes.’

‘Take me home,’ she muttered.