“Damn straight, but… It’s different for him. He directs it all to himself, thinking that if he could just be better somehow, the girl of his love wouldn’t have ended up with that fat cat. The more he dwelled on that thought, the more he hung his head and just… couldn’t straighten his spine and look ahead no more.”

Pity colored Deirdre’s eyes.

“Money is the Devil, ain’t it? You can do whatever you like when you’re rich, but live by your shoestrings if you don’t have ‘em.”

Mrs. Cox continued. “That’s why I’m happy to see Hoyt this happy when he helps you. Maybe you won’t date each other, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you brought him out of the shadows. That’s the point of these relationships, isn’t it? Forgetting the pain of the last one is a blessing. Finding a new person to try again is another.”

The rain stopped.

Mrs. Cox went back to sleep while Deirdre sat on the edge of her bed, her eyes blank.

‘Try again with a new person, she said.’

That was not what Deird