Jennifer Lohmann - Winning Ruby Heart

Instead, he was silent for several seconds. Ruby was about to tell him to forget she asked when he said, “Why are you asking me this question and not someone else?”

“Because when everyone close to me was telling me that blood doping was no big deal, you came right out and told me that I was the emperor wearing no clothes.” After that interview, faced with his scorn, she’d been naked, shivering with exposure. “If I specifically ask you for the truth, you won’t lie to me.”

Micah drummed his fingers on the table as he regarded her, again stripping away the protective layers she’d so carefully constructed over the past several years until her raw nakedness was exposed. She shivered.

“Do people lie to you regularly?” he asked.

“Forget it.” She shoved a heaping pile of refried beans onto her fork. It was more than she could fit in her mouth, but the protein in the beans would help her build back the layers she needed to protect herself. “Despite you pretending earlier, this isn’t a conversation. Hell, it’s not even an interview. This is turning into some weird therapy session.”

“You’re the one who asked the question.”

“And you’ve only answered with questions of your own. And how did it make you feel knowing that the people you trusted most said, ‘everyone does it,’ and you wanted to win so badly that you believed them? How does it make you feel that people call you a lying bitch at the grocery store for cheating and a betraying bitch for confessing?” she mocked.

Suddenly cold, she pushed her chair back from the table, using so much force that the back legs caught on the carpet and she had to grab on to the table before she toppled over. Once she’d righted herself, she rooted around in her bag for a sweatshirt, desperate for more cover. But she wasn’t going to run away and hide from him. When she returned to the table, she lifted her chin and looked him directly in the eyes.

The drumming of his fingers irritated her to no end. So did his placid face. He should be angry. Or something. Not this provoking openness that made her ask such questions in the first place. She pushed her beans around the take-out container. Forgive her or yell at her. None of this middle-ground crap.

“So people do lie to you.”

“I assume the ones calling me a bitch are expressing their true feelings. It’s the people who tell me, ‘it’s not so bad,’ that I doubt.” He was doing it again—getting her to answer a question without answering one himself. She scooped beans onto her fork and took a bite, again getting more beans than were possible for her to swallow easily. Maybe now she’d think and chew before giving in to his questions.

Micah took a big sip of his drink. Ruby mashed the beans with her tongue, wishing she were eating something chewy, like bread, so she could pretend her food needed several good chomps and fight her body’s reflex to swallow. Could she outchew him?

Just as she decided he wasn’t going to answer, Micah spoke. “I did hate you. After that interview, when you were so naive and stupid and blind about the trust you’d abused. And you had the audacity to compare your cheating to my disability. Like a freak accident that changed my body forever is the same thing as your calculated decision to modify yours. You hid out in your parents’ house, coming out only when it was convenient for you and, for the most part, your world has not changed. Meanwhile, I have to fight for the world to recognize that my life has as much worth now that I can’t wiggle my toes as it did when I could.”

She swallowed, the taste of her food overwhelmed by the bitterness of her past ignorance. “Yes, I’m...”

“Stop.” Weariness overcame his face. “Apologizing only makes it worse.”

“Can I agree that I was stupid?”

To her surprise—and apparently to his, as well—Micah smiled. “Yes, you can agree with me on that.” He cocked his head to the side and the pendant lamp caught a twinkle in his eyes. God, he was good-looking. “I like to be agreed with.”

“When you said hate, you used the past tense.”

“I have better things to spend my energy on than keeping alive a feeling as powerful as hate for you.”

About as much worth hating as a pebble stuck in his tire, she was sure. “So why interview me about ultramarathons? Why not Geoff Roes or Jenn Shelton or Currito?”

“Geoff has his own movie and Jenn her own book. Currito is an interesting guy, but you getting back into running would be the story of the year. Everyone would be wondering if America’s Darling had really reformed. You’d be back on the cover of People. Sports Illustrated would do another story on you. If Oprah were still on, you’d be invited to sit on her couch. And you know it, too.”

He was right, she did know it. And it was part of the reason she would say no to his requests until cows came home bearing her gold medal. “Since I’ve only recently been replaced as the sports villain du jour, I’m going to keep saying no to this idea you have of a feature on me, no matter how many times you call my mother.”

“Let’s make a deal.” Damn his wide, inviting eyes. He didn’t beg or make her beg, but there was something in the cast of his features and the assurance with which he carried himself that made her want to talk to him. “I’ll answer one of your questions for every one of mine you answer.”

She suppressed the feeling of small victory by clinging to reality. “You didn’t answer the second half of my first question.”

“Do you need my forgiveness to move on with your life?” His left dimple deepened as one side of his mouth kicked up in a smile.

“That’s a really annoying habit, you know.” She refused to be as amused by him as he was by himself.

“If you’d agreed to the bargain, then that would count as one of my questions.” He opened his arms to her. They looked so strong and protective that she wanted to crawl into them, so she looked away and only half heard what he said next. “The bargain is open-ended. You can keep a tally of questions I ask in your back pocket and use them against me.”

The dim hotel room. The buzz of the air conditioner. Light brown eyebrows shadowing blue eyes. She wasn’t safe here, as she’d led herself to believe. But she was better—in this room, life was certain. Micah couldn’t be relied on not to hurt her, but he would be honest with her when she asked, and enough people lied to her while trying not to hurt her that his honesty was enough for right now.

“Whatever I say is off-the-record. This isn’t an interview.”

“I agree to that.”

“Do you swear?”

“You said you wanted my opinion because I wouldn’t lie to you. I said I agreed this wasn’t an interview. Either you believe me or you don’t.”

Ruby put her elbows on the small table, wrapping her hands together in front of her mouth, while she thought about his question. Either you believe me or you don’t. “Trust me enough to close your eyes and leap across the chasm with me,” the soft blue of his eyes said. He raised an eyebrow at her and she looked away again.

She didn’t want to hide anymore. She didn’t want to be hounded, but she didn’t think she should have to live in a hole in the ground, either. She lowered her hands so they no longer blocked her face and looked him in the eye. “I don’t think I know what forgiveness is, so how do I know if I need it to move on with my life?”

Micah made a low whistling noise. Ruby looked down at her food, pushing the last bits of enchilada and beans around in the take-out container. After such an embarrassing confession, she should want to close the container, open the room door and encourage Micah out. Instead, she wanted to hear what he had to say. His opinion mattered—as it had five years ago. Only then it had sent her scurrying into her parents’ house in shame. Now she hoped to use what he told her to bust out forever.