“No.” Anthony rubbed his eyes: he suddenly looked very tired. “My wife started sleeping with someone else long before I got caught. Probably even before I plagiarized. But she officially kicked me out after I was caught, yes. And the money dried up, and everything dried up. I’m in a deep, deep hole. Yes.” He shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, I knew you wouldn’t understand. I knew you wouldn’t get it.”

“And why not?” She breathed in deeply. She felt her anger crystallize. “Why wouldn’t I get it?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head again. “It’s just . . .”

“What?”

“Your divorce was amicable. The relationship you have with Dustin, the way you handle Maggie together—it’s different. It’s smooth. You wouldn’t get what it’s like for me, not really. You have it easier.”

This made Joy seethe on both the inside and the outside. “Are you kidding me? The nerve you have!” She thought about all the lonely nights when Maggie was asleep and the winter wind was howling. “You think it’s been smooth sailing the whole way, that it was just no problem to have a two-year-old and no money and be on my own, starting over in a new place? It’s taken me a decade to get where I am, Anthony. A decade. And almost none of it has been easy.”

“Well, but . . .” His face twisted; she could tell that he was struggling to say what he wanted to say the right way. “What I mean is, you’re tough. You know what you want, and you just . . . go after it. In that way I think it’s been easier for you. Because of who you are, the kind of person you are. Which is what I admire about you, Joy.”

He might be trying to flatter her, but every word was just making Joy more angry. “Then you don’t understand anything,” she said. Growing up wealthy with a famous father, having his own path mapped out for him, then willfully throwing it away—no, he didn’t deserve Joy’s sympathy, and she wouldn’t give it. “Maybe instead of acting like such a victim, you should figure your own shit out. That’s what I had to do. And it hurt plenty along the way. You don’t own pain, Anthony Puckett. You don’t own the whole world of pain.”

He was silent for a minute. She could see her words settling in.

“You’re right,” he said finally. His voice was more conciliatory and he stepped toward her. “I’m sorry. Joy, I really am. I’m sorry I disappointed you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole story. I’m sorry I didn’t have everything figured out when I bumped into you. I never meant to get attached to this place, or anyone here. It never seemed . . . real to me.”

Couldn’t he see that with every sentence Anthony was only getting himself deeper in the hole? “Excuse me all over the place,” said Joy. “But like I said before. This is my real world. This is mine and Maggie’s real world every day, year-round. And you cannot come into it and make me fall in love with you under false pretenses.”