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Eventually I got up and went over to the far seat at the end of the counter, letting the regulars take the booth that was far too big for just one person. There I was able to tuck myself into a corner so I could go pretty much unnoticed. But Dolly, of course, noticed me even more.

She appeared again, sliding a fresh glass of sweet tea in front of me without asking. “What’s eatin’ you, sugar?”

“Nothin’,” I said, wrapping my hands around the cold glass. “Just thinkin’.”

“Mm-hmm.” She didn’t believe me for a second, but she let it go for the time being. “Well, I’m gonna take my lunch break here real soon. When I do, we’ll go out back and eat at my little picnic table, how about that?”

I wanted to decline her offer, but how could I? She was family, she was giving me a free place to stay, and Westley a place too. I was in her debt up to my eyeballs.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll head out there now. I feel like I’m in the way in here.”

“You ain’t in the way, sugar,” Dolly said, giving me a swat with her towel before I could even push back from the counter. “But go on, get some fresh air. I’ll be out in ten minutes with sandwiches.”

I slipped out the back door of the diner into the little alley where she kept her herb garden in mismatched pots and an old picnic table that had probably been there since before I was born. The wood was gray and splintering in places, but somebody, probably Dolly, had painted little sunflowers along the edge of it at some point, faded now but still cheerful. I sat down on the bench, careful of my ribs, and let my head tip back against the brick wall behind me.

The alley smelled like fry grease and basil, and somewhere down the block I could hear the tractor supply store’s radio playing some old country song through a cracked window. It should’ve been peaceful. Instead, my mind kept circling back to Westley, the way he’d gone quiet on me that morning, the way he wouldn’t quite meet my eyes over breakfast even while he was thanking me for being there.

Something had happened. I knew Westley well enough to know when he was hiding something, same as he probably knew it about me. And my mind kept telling me it was his regrets setting in for defending me. He’d lost a lot because I couldn’t put up with a little bit of jeering. I had to make it up to him somehow.

The screen door creaked open and Dolly came out balancing two plates and a couple more glasses of tea, her apron dusted with flour. She set one plate in front of me, a thick ham sandwich with more mayo than any doctor would recommend, and settled herself across from me with a groan.

“Lord, my feet,” she muttered, kicking off one high heel shoe under the table. “Eat up. You’re too damn skinny as it is, and now with them bruises you look like you been through a meat grinder.”

“Thanks, Aunt Dolly,” I said, and I meant it, even if the sandwich sat heavy in my stomach next to everything else weighing on me.

She watched me pick at the bread for a minute before she set her own sandwich down, folding her hands together like she was fixing to say grace, except her eyes were fixed square on me instead of bowed.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ve let you dance around whatever this is for half the day now. I fed you, I gave you a roof, I didn’t push. But I’m done bein’ patient, Rhett Levi. You’re gonna tell me what happened out there at that ranch, and you’re gonna tell me now, because I’ve about had it up to here with watchin’ you mope around my diner like a kicked dog.”

My stomach dropped somewhere down around my boots. “Aunt Dolly⁠—”

“Don’t you Aunt Dolly me.” Her voice was firm, but there was nothing but love underneath it, the same tone she’d used on me since I was a boy showing up on her porch with skinned knees and no explanation for how I got them. “I raised you enough of your life to think I’ve earned the truth.”

I stared down at the half-eaten sandwich on my plate, my throat tightening up something fierce. The alley suddenly felt too small, too quiet except for that radio still playing faintly down the street.

“It ain’t somethin’ I can just say,” I finally managed, my voice cracking a little around the edges. “It ain’t that simple.”

“Nothin’ worth sayin’ ever is,” she said, reaching across the table to take my hand in both of hers. Her palms were rough from years of kitchen work, but warm, steady in a way that made my eyes sting. “But you’re gonna choke on it if you keep swallowin’ it down, sugar. I’ve watched you do that your whole life. Ever since your parents passed you’ve been carryin’ things all by yourself that you never had to carry alone. Hell, you were doin’ it before then.”

I swallowed hard, blinking against the burn behind my eyes. “What if you don’t like what I gotta say?”

“There ain’t a single thing you could tell me that would make me love you any less,” Dolly said, squeezing my hand tighter. “You hear me? Not one thing.”

The words sat there in the space between us, and I felt something crack open in my chest, something that had been screwed down tight for years now, since long before I even had the words for what I was.

“Chuck and them boys,” I started, my voice barely above a whisper, “they didn’t jump me for no reason, Dolly.”

“I figured as much,” she said gently. “Go on.”

I closed my eyes, and the words came tumbling out before I could stop them, quiet and shaking, like I was confessing to something a whole lot bigger than what it actually was.

“They said I was sweet on Westley.” I took a shallow breath. “They said I was gay.”

Dolly stared at me for a long moment, not saying anything.

“Please don’t hate me,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

She got up from the table, came around to my side, and pulled me into a tight hug. “It ain’t my place to hate anyone, Rhett,” she said softly as she rocked me side to side. “The good Lord don’t make mistakes. You’re just the way you were meant to be. And I love you just as much as I ever have, sugar. Ain’t nothin’ gonna change that.”