Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
But that disruption to his schedule paled in comparison to the larger disruption. Westley Mobray was about to leave his house and go to a school full of people—full of children, no less—in the daylight, where anyone could look at him.
The mind reeled.
Wes wasn’t agoraphobic. He didn’t get panic attacks in crowded places, nor was it precisely fear he felt at the prospect of going to them. What he absolutely, positively hated was being looked at. Feeling as though he was being observed.
And because of that, he had a habit of trying to make himself invisible in scenarios when people would observe him. This resulted in a sensation of being alienated from his own body. Little by little as he stood there, pieces of him would begin to feel wrong. The arm closest to people would go all strange—like it had no function. Then perhaps the legs he stood on. Then a shoulder.
Until, after a while, he felt like a mass of whirling energy trapped in a strange and clumsy form that became a prison. When people looked at the prison, or needed it to function, it became bigger and clumsier and less effectual.
And then, all Wes wanted was to disappear.
It had begun the year he was fifteen. The year the whole world had seemed to be observing him. And it had never gone away. For the next three years he’d been forced to capitulate to social conventions because he was living in his parents’ home. But once he moved out, he had the freedom to eschew those conventions and avoid people as he pleased.
With each passing year of doing so, he’d found it increasingly unpleasant to attend the social functions that other people seemed to navigate with ease.
Now, with no one to dictate his schedule or police his habits, Wes was free to avoid the places and situations that made him feel distant from himself.
He had everything delivered, from groceries to laboratory equipment. During the day, when sensory stimulation and chance encounters with people were at their height, Wes slept. In the quiet, private darkness, he lived his life. He found places to do experiments and caught rodents for the snakes. He socialized online or via video chat; and conducted his meetings and conference appearances in the same way.
Wes had cultivated precisely the life he wanted.
And now he was breaking every barrier he’d put in place to take a tarantula to a little girl’s school.
Chapter Seven
Adam
Adam had spent the previous evening trying to temper Gus’ excitement by reminding her that it was possible Wes might not show up.
“He will, Daddy. I know he will,” Gus insisted, and Adam’s heart clenched at the faith she already had in Wes—and at the knowledge that Wes might betray it.
He cursed himself one hundred times for not getting Wes’ number so he could text to remind him.
By 7:00 a.m., he was a mess of nerves, gulping coffee and peering out the kitchen window at Wes’ house, trying to see if he could spot a light or a TV on that might indicate his mysterious neighbor was awake.
It was impossible because of the paper covering all the windows.
“God, he’s so weird,” Adam muttered to himself as he poured another cup of coffee. “And hot,” he added, regrettably honest with himself when he’d had very little sleep—which he had, the night before, waking at 2:00 a.m. convinced Wes would be a no-show, then watching a loop in his mind of all the times Mason had disappointed him or let Gus down.
“Why do I think he’s so hot?”
Wes Mobray was strange and awkward and lived in a hellscape of a haunted house crawling with things that Adam didn’t even wish to think about.
He was also kind and generous and obviously brilliant. He took Gus’ interests seriously and didn’t treat her like a kid. He loved animals that most people thought were creepy and was gentle with them. His blue eyes were warm and honest and when he smiled it made Adam want to smile.
“Welp, I guess that’s why.”
“Why what, Daddy?”
Gus wandered into the kitchen rubbing her eyes, wearing jeans, one sock, and her pajama top.
“Why you’re the greatest kid in the world.”
Gus rolled her eyes, but smiled a little, and Adam brushed her soft blond hair back from her face. She had a spot at the back of her head that was always knotted from sleeping on it and his heart swelled with tenderness whenever he saw it.
“Can I have waffles?” she asked, leaning into his touch.
“Yeah. I’ll make them while you go put on a shirt and another sock.”
She trudged out of the kitchen and Adam popped a frozen waffle into the toaster.
Absently, he added Learn how to cook to his ever-expanding list of things to do.
When the waffle popped up and Gus wasn’t back yet, Adam nibbled on it absently and put another one in for her.