Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Her smile is warm and kind. “I had a feeling,” she says, then takes a beat. “Tell me more about her. I know she lives in London. She’s going to school there? Getting her master’s degree?”
“Yes, she finished her bachelor’s there too. A few years ago.”
“So she went back to study? Good for her. That’s so cool,” she says, as the highway narrows and we drive higher into the hills. The snow-capped peaks of Evergreen Falls aren’t too far away now.
“It was her dream for the longest time. When she was married to my father, she wanted to go. She even told him as much a few times when I was maybe ten or eleven. But he said it was too expensive and there was no need,” I say, my voice tight with simmering anger. “Of course the irony is he took what little college savings he’d had and gambled it away.”
She winces. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is it…an addiction?”
This isn’t how I’d planned to tell her. In fact, I’m not sure I’d planned to tell her at all. But she figured it out, and I don’t want to lie. Temporary though as this is, trust is vital. After all, we’re trusting each other with the secret of this fake romance. “Yes. He goes to meetings. But he relapses all the time. He’s had more one-day chips than I can count. His good friend, Victor, often keeps me posted on how my dad’s doing,” I tell her. “Victor is a blackjack dealer at one of the casinos and he’ll sometimes give me a heads-up since my dad doesn’t always give me the details. But Victor will let me know if Dad lost a big game or something. He looks out for him, which I appreciate,” I say, my shoulders slumping some, because I wish I didn’t have to rely on Victor. “When he does call—my dad—he’s almost always asking for money, and he’s utterly unreliable. I invited him to Thanksgiving a couple years ago so he could spend time with Mac, and he said yes, but then canceled at the last minute.”
Apparently, the valve has been opened and I can’t shut it off. “I don’t know if it was a poker game, or a woman, or he just couldn’t get it together. But he didn’t show, and I called Victor, and Victor didn’t even know what was going on. Mac was such a trouper when she went to bed, and she said she missed seeing him.” My jaw tightens at the memory. “The next time my father called a few days later, I told him that he’d let her down. He made up a song and dance about a last-minute shift and needing the money. Though maybe it was true. He loses most of what he has.”
“Wilder,” Fable says in a voice thick with emotions. “I’m sorry he’s got those demons and that they’re hurting you and Mac.”
But that’s not the full truth of it. “Sometimes he asks me for money,” I admit. “Sometimes I give it to him.” My eye twitches—a reminder that that’s not the full truth. Briefly, I look at her straight on. “Actually, most of the time I give it to him, Fable.”
Her voice is kind—a forgiveness. “I understand. Sometimes we aren’t always ready to do the hard thing. So we have to do something easier first.”
As we rush past a sign boasting that Evergreen Falls is twenty-five miles away, I steal a glance at my traveling companion. She’s beautiful, funny, and wise beyond her years. And she’s the first person I’ve confessed all that to. “I don’t usually tell people about him,” I say.
“I won’t tell a soul,” she says, then mimes zipping her lips and tossing the key.
That’s not what I was getting at though. “No, Fable. That’s not why I said that. It wasn’t to ensure you’d keep the secret.” I pause, so the weight of the words can sink in. “It’s because I wanted you to know.”
Perhaps it’s an admission of sorts.
She doesn’t say anything at first. The only sound in the car is the chorus on “Silver Bells” and the whooshing of the other cars on the highway.
Briefly, I wonder if I’ve said too much.
But my chest feels a little bit lighter. From having told her about my father, and about wanting her to know.
I don’t regret it.
At last she speaks, soft but clear. “I like knowing you.”
And it’s like my chest is expanding, making room for the way my heart is growing for her.
Too bad it’s only temporary.
As I slow at our exit, Fable points to a wooden sign painted red, with the words Welcome to Evergreen Falls in white on it. A red-and-green garland illustration coasts around the border of the sign, inviting us to enter this town that feels like it’s in another world. “I have a feeling we’re not in San Francisco anymore,” she says in a quiet voice.