Page 69 of I Hate You More

“And so he does, when he likes a person. The problem is, he doesn’t like very many people.” She paused. “He likes your Spencer.”

“He’s not my Spencer,” Ruby corrected her.

“After that display out on my front porch, I think we both know that’s a lie.”

Ruby’s cheeks flushed even more than they already were. It might have been the effect of the antihistamine taking hold, but she doubted it. This was shame and embarrassment and unadulterated pleasure all at once.

“You heard what he said,” she protested, pushing that pleasure down as far as it could go. “About allowing Wheezy into the competition, about letting him win. As if there’s no way either of us couldimaginesuccess otherwise. As though we’re nothing without him.”

Mrs. Orson nodded and took Ruby’s hand in her own. Ruby loved the way her skin felt, like a well-worn blanket.

Like so many things about this woman, however, looks were deceiving.

“Which is why you and Wheezy are going to be in that show next week.”

“Mrs. Orson, I don’t think you understand—” She tried to take her hand back, but Mrs. Orson held her firm. The soft skin and gentle fingers transformed at once to a predator’s talons.

“As soon as Norbert realized that he couldn’t push Wheezy around, he looked into the breeder. He needed someone to blame… He’s always been a blamer. When he found out they may have lied about Wheezy’s origins, he demanded his money back with reparations. For all I know, he got them. I don’t care. Wheezy and I didn’t stay long enough to find out.”

“You left him.”

“Wheezy gave me the strength to do it. Norbert pushed me around for fifty years, and I took it. But when he turned on that dog…” She shook her head, her fingers pressing so hard into Ruby’s hand that the pain was starting to overtake the itching. She didn’t pull away, though. There was something profoundly comforting in that strength. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you remind me of Wheezy.”

Ruby knew it to be the truth—and not just because of those golden curls and brown eyes. Wheezy was a well-trained animal who refused to become a star on someone else’s terms. He refused to doanythingon someone else’s terms…unless, of course, that someone was Spencer Wilson.

Which was exactly the problem. Trying to get the better of Spencer had brought her back to life, yes, but he couldn’t be her reason for staying that way. It was just another form of pageantry, something else to hitch her wagon to.

She liked Spencer. She probably even loved him. But for the first time in her life, she loved herself more.

“I can’t take Wheezy to the West Coast Canine Classic,” Ruby said. She finally managed to wrest her hand free of Mrs. Orson’s. “Don’t you see? I’d be playing into Spencer’s game, trying to mold myself to fit someone else’s rules.”

Mrs. Orson laughed—that deep, body-shaking, beautiful laugh. Ruby couldn’t help but feel sorry for Norbert, wherever he was. He’d missed out on something wonderful when he tried to quash this woman’s spirit.

“Then don’t follow his rules, dear,” she said. “Follow your own.”

Ruby stared at Mrs. Orson, that soft, beautiful face going in and out of focus. This thing she was saying—this idea she was proposing—was both the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world. For Ruby’s entire life, she’d been told to change herself to fit predetermined criteria. To win a pageant, to get a man, to hold down a job.

What Mrs. Orson was suggesting was the exact opposite.

“You brilliant, beautiful woman!” Ruby sprang to her feet. The antihistamine had started to make her woozy, but she didn’t care. She welcomed that feeling of being off-balance, of not knowing herself to be on solid ground. Leaning down, she pressed a loud and smacking kiss on Mrs. Orson’s cheek. “You really think I can do it?”

“You can do anything you put your mind to. Take it from a woman who spent far too many years doing what she was told. Life is so much better when you live it on your own terms.”

Chapter 20

“Caesar, buddy, you have to stop this.”

Spencer paused in the middle of scrubbing his kitchen sink, surgical gloves up to his elbows and a container of bleach by his side. Growing up, his mom had always been a cathartic cleaner—the more upset she’d been, the harder she’d scrubbed. He could still remember the morning after Caleb had been first expelled from school for one of his many teenage escapades. Spencer had woken up at four o’clock to find his mom on hands and knees, taking a toothbrush to every inch of grout in the guest bathroom.

He hadn’t been scrubbingquitethat long yet, but there was still time.

“I mean it, Caesar. Come over here.”

The bulldog, who was lying by the front door with his head on his paws and heaving a forlorn sigh every ten seconds, responded with—what else?—another forlorn sigh.

“It hurts my feelings. You do realize that, right?” Spencer gave up on the sink, peeling off his gloves with a snap. All traces of Caleb were now removed from the kitchen—the stacks of old takeout in the refrigerator, the garbage that hadn’t been emptied in over a week, the cheap bottles of whiskey that had replaced normal things like ketchup and sriracha. From the way the kitchen sparkled and gleamed, Spencer’s house was finally starting to look the way it used to.

Cold. Sterile.Empty.