Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Grant is effervescent, a people person. He’s charming and charismatic and he wields a brilliant smile that can light a room from a mile away.
But Cainan is reserved. There’s an undercurrent of intelligence in his eyes, but he’s not boastful. I get the impression he’s quietly loyal. Unquestionably trustworthy. And being around him reminds me of this lake my family vacationed at one summer—surrounded by ancient oaks, the water so unaffected it looked like glass.
“I called a psychic,” I say, cringing.
“What?”
“The craziest thing I ever did.” My cheeks warm, but I continue with my confession—one that flows like water from a broken faucet in his presence. “Five years ago, my sister passed. And … I guess … you know, people do weird things when they’re grieving. Me? I called a psychic. And then I called another one. And another. We’ve got them all over back in Arizona—especially in Sedona. I must have spent thousands of dollars trying to connect with her. All I wanted was a sign.”
I exhale, an unexpected lightness taking over me.
“Did you get one?” he asks without missing a beat.
I appreciate his reserved judgement.
The wind lifts my hair into my face again. He reaches to brush it away, the soft pads of his fingertips tracing my mouth. Instantly, I think of what he said that first night—about orgasms, about using his tongue and fingers …
I clear my throat and redirect my thoughts.
“They were all frauds. They were all cold reading me.” I shake my head, and then I add, “Anyway. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done. And you’re officially the only person who knows, so …”
My family would laugh if they knew. Maybe not back then, because they were grieving too, but now. In retrospect. Because I’m the pragmatic one. I’m logical. I’m a numbers girl. Give me facts. Real things rooted in reality. Not woo-woo psychic mediums claiming they can see through some invisible spirit veil and talk to dead people.
I’ve yet to tell Grant. I don’t suppose it’s worth mentioning at this point, seeing where our engagement is headed. And who knows how he’d respond? He doesn’t strike me as anyone who believes in anything he can’t see, feel, hear, or touch.
“What kind of sign were you wanting?” he asks.
I’m comforted by the fact that he isn’t snickering, rolling his eyes, or offering a sympathetic cringe. He’s simply standing there, listening, interested in the insanity coming out of my mouth on this chilly fall evening.
In a city of millions, right now, it feels like it’s just him and me.
“I don’t know. Something only the two of us would’ve known. We were twins. We had all kinds of inside jokes. Secrets. Nicknames. Things no one else could possibly know. I just wanted to know she was out there … somewhere. I guess. I know this sounds crazy.”
I don’t tell him about all the books I secretly devoured on my Kindle about seemingly everyday people having brushes with the ghosts of their loved ones. I don’t tell him about lying in bed at night poring through stories online from people claiming their deceased grandmother was leaving pennies all over their house, or that they smelled their late father’s cologne everywhere they went, or that they woke to find a transparent apparition of their dead best friend at the foot of their bed.
I wanted so badly to believe the stories, as strange and implausible as they were.
I wanted so badly to stumble across a sign that Kari was on the other side—wherever that is—having the time of her life and missing me as much as I missed her.
He sniffs. “No, I get it. Sometimes we just want answers, and we do what we have to do to get them. Sorry you got ripped off. Maybe you’ll get your sign someday … maybe when you least expect it.”
“Eh. It’s all right. I stopped looking a long time ago.”
The door opens, and for a moment, I find myself bracing for Grant’s unwelcomed interruption. But it’s only a drunk couple. Stumbling, they turn left, disappearing into the dark halfway down the street.
“So I have to ask …” he says. “When I met you at the bar the other week … you said you were going to end your engagement.”
Shit.
I twist the glistening ring that rests secure on my finger. “Yeah. I did say that.”
“You realize he’s crazy about you.” He speaks with a tight tone, like he’s merely stating fact.
“I know.”
“Never seen him like this about any other woman before, and I’ve known the guy since we were a couple of kindergarteners with matching Superman lunchboxes.”
A bittersweet smile claims my lips when I imagine the two of them as chubby-cheeked little boys with ripped jeans and grape Kool-Aid mustaches. They were inseparable, Grant told me once. Closer than brothers. Grant’s mother told me she always thought of Cainan as her second son, that every year she baked him a single chocolate cupcake on his birthday because his parents never celebrated it. A handful of times they took him along on family vacations. And his senior year of high school, after his parents kicked him out of their house, he moved in with the Forsythes, where he lived until he went off to college the following fall.