Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“He’d be asking me a question.”
I swallow, thinking of marriage, wondering if it makes us crazy. “He said that to me, too,” I mutter. “But we can’t do that to Kayla, can we? She’s been through so much already.”
“Have you tried letting him go?” Mom asks.
“Yeah,” I say grimly. “Pretty much every single second of every day since it first happened.”
Mom nods, thankfully not asking me to give any more details. “I’ve always wondered about you, Maci,” she says. “I know you can be cruel to yourself about your appearance. I thought that was why you never had boyfriends, though I was certain you could have any boy you wanted. Now I think I know. You were waiting. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Like what?” I ask, but I know what she’s talking about. I feel like I’m glowing.
“Even with all the stress hanging over our heads,” Mom continues, “you can barely keep that smile off your face.”
“Kayla’s my best friend,” I say. “Lukas is more than twice my age. It’s not normal, Mom.”
“Since when did you spend your life stressing about what is and isn’t normal?” Mom counters. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Kayla—”
“Okay, yes, that, her. Yes, I’ll admit that, but I mean in terms of your age gap. All I care about is that he respects you and you’re happy. Those are my concerns.”
“He does,” I say, “and I am. I would be, but this is all academic, Mom. When we tell Kayla, everything’s going to come crashing down. There’s no way to avoid it.”
“When are you going to tell her?” Mom asks.
“After all this is over, I guess,” I reply. “We haven’t really talked about it. We haven’t had time, obviously.”
Mom nods, glancing up when a security guard walks around the pool perimeter. We’re both quiet until he’s out of earshot.
“Your father always said that to read somebody, you have to make an orb of your consciousness and throw it through their skull.”
I laugh. “That sounds like Dad.”
She smiles, but the dreaminess in her eyes turns sad. “He had this game he’d play when he first became a writer. He’d sit on a park bench and watch people. He’d throw this so-called orb of consciousness into other people’s heads. First, he’d imagine how it felt to physically be them, their shape, the texture of their clothes, if they were sweating, their shoes. Then he’d try to see through their eyes and fill his thoughts with what he imagined they were thinking. It was a way for him to enhance empathy for his novels.”
I take Mom’s hand. We’ve both dealt with the grief well, but it never fades entirely. There will always be a part of us that can’t stop missing him.
“I’ve tried it here and there,” Mom goes on. “I did it with Lukas. I’m sure he was telling the truth. He really cares about you, but he was also telling the truth when he begged me to make him stop. He’s an honorable man. He won’t pursue you without my blessing. When I saw how in love he was, I couldn’t.”
“In love,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Don’t go that far, Mom.”
She squeezes my hand. “I know love when I see it. I’ve been in love twice in my life.”
I gasp. “You love Mark?”
Mom narrows her eyes. “Does that surprise you?”
“I… I guess not,” I say, thinking back over all the times I’ve seen them together, all the affection and sparkle between them.
“I suppose you’d prefer if I never loved again.”
Now it’s my turn to squeeze her hand. “Don’t be silly. I want you to be happy.”
“Still, it will always be difficult for you—how not-Dad Mark is.”
“Sure it is,” I tell her. “But just because something’s difficult doesn’t mean we should just quit, does it? It doesn’t give us the excuse to… What?”
She’s smiling at me. “I just think you should apply this logic to your situation.”
I bite down. “I can’t stop thinking of Kay’s face when we tell her. How it’ll turn to hate and ruin every moment we’ve ever spent together.”
“What if it doesn’t? What if she sees that you have something special? What if she supports you?”
I let go of Mom’s hand, stand up, and walk to the pool’s edge. “That’s never going to happen,” I say.
“You don’t know that. Kayla wants her dad to be happy, too, Maci, as much as you want me to be.”
“I guess we’ll see,” I mutter. “I guess we’ll hope.”
Mom walks up behind me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Whatever happens, I’ll always be here to support you.”
I turn and fall into a hug. She wraps her arms around me. We stay like that for a long time.
CHAPTER 25
LUKAS
“Nobody will understand this,” I say as I finish the live, during which I’ve talked about our progress with the VR system. “But there’s a place my business partner, Sebastian, goes sometimes. It’s a place near the water. It’s a place under a bridge. It’s not a happy place, and if Nobody understands, that’s fine. But if somebody out there does, I’ll see you very soon.”