"I'll go now … no, I'm all right … Don't say anything … don't spoil it … I don't want to hate you. Bye."
She stepped quickly on the soft green grass, her mind a green pool full of moving objects. All that had surged through it a short time ago was gone. Gone like the mud pies, dolls and the freckles that used to cross the bridge of her nose. She had told him of her love but the words had fallen on deaf ears. Ears shut to her pleading and eyes that searched far away into unknown depths; too deep for her to reach out and touch their meaning. She stopped in her walk and looked around at him once. Looked at him from over her shoulder.
"Goodbye, my darling," she uttered to herself; then walked toward the dark house.
Gaylord watched and as he did so his name sprang sharply from floating mixed sounds … "Gaylord." He listened, his ears ringing from the sneering sound. "Go tell her you love her. At least tell her about Bob … Explain to her. Don't send her away like this. This is the way you've been treated all your life. Now, you're doing the same thing to her."
He turned from where the voice seemed to come and looked at Joy. She seemed tired. With each step her shoulders drooped, like those of an old woman who had spent her life over a wash tub.
I can't … I can't, he cried to the voice. I can't tell her.
He ached with the anguished awareness of the moment. Doing that to Joy was terrible. She was his friend. You didn't mess up a friend's life. God, what had he done. He could never face her again. He could never look at her or her mother in the face again.
She paused when she heard the soft low sputtering motor. She turned and watched the outline of the car. Gradually it grew fainter and then died completely away down the dark street.
"It's not your fault," she cried out aloud. "It's not your fault." Sobbing, she ran into the dark house.
Gaylord drove for an hour over the abandoned streets; past wire fences and cedar posts. Over the never ending slabs of cement, the wheels turned; turned and spun like the thoughts in his mind.
The voice sprang again at him with a demand to be heard.
"Gaylord, you can't run away. Why don't you go back and tell
