I'm the Only One Going in Blind novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Loudest No

Dustin picked the diner, which was the first thing he had picked in two years.

It was on Oberlin Avenue, across from the shop, and he had eaten there every Tuesday since he was nineteen.

We took the back booth at six in the morning.

The waitress put down two mugs without asking and looked at Dustin twice.

"Usual?" she said.

"Please," Dustin said.

She went away fast, so she could tell the cook.

I set the paper bag from the shop on the table between the ketchup and the sugar.

I took out the navy ring box and opened it, and the diamond caught the light from the window.

"She bought it on my card," I said. "The Friday before the conservatory. Thirty-four hundred dollars."

Dustin looked at the ring for a while.

Then his shoulders began to shake.

At first I thought he was crying, and I reached across the table.

He put up a hand, and I saw his mouth, and he was laughing.

It was a rusty, wheezing laugh, and it came out of him in pieces.

"On your card," he said. "She made you pay for it."

"Looks like it."

"She was going to make me propose with your money." He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "And then you'd have found the statement in January and thought you'd lost your mind."

I started laughing too.

I couldn't help it.

It was the first time in eleven weeks that anything about Lacey had been funny, and it came up out of my chest hard.

The couple in the next booth turned around.

The waitress came back with two plates of eggs and stood at the end of the table watching us with the coffeepot held in front of her.

"I'm calling your mother," she said to Dustin.

"Please don't."

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