Secret Lucidity(104)

Curiosity gets to me as I walk across the patio and down a few steps to the pool.

“Are you going to make time for us to hang out . . . just the two of us?”

Her whole tone has shifted, and I don’t hear an ounce of the upbeat girl I see every day at school.

Setting the phone at her side, she braces the edge of the dock with her hands and drops her head. I feel like I’m intruding on a private moment, but I don’t walk away. I don’t move at all, until I do, because there’s something intolerable about her being upset, no matter what the reason.

Wood creaks beneath my feet when I step onto the dock and she startles. She snaps her head up to meet my eyes and her cheeks are covered in tears.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say, and she immediately shies away, turning to quickly wipe her face.

Kicking off my flip-flops, I sit next to her and drop my legs over the edge, alongside hers.

She sniffs and clears her throat, her lame attempt to mask what I just saw. “What are you doing here?”

“Who were you talking to?” I ask, avoiding her effort to distract me with her irrelevant question, and my bluntness catches her off guard.

“What?”

“The person who made you cry. Who was it?”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t answer me right away. There’s something about seeing her on the brink of vulnerability that tugs me from an unknown place. She’s hesitant to talk, and I guess I can’t blame her with how evasive I’ve been with her lately.

“I’m sorry I was a dick in my car the other week. I shouldn’t have blown you off.”

Her face softens with my apology as she’s cast in waves of silver from the moon’s reflection off the water. She still doesn’t speak, though, so I go on only because I want her to trust me enough to answer my question when I ask it again.

“My parents were never married,” I tell her, answering the question she asked a couple of weeks ago. The one I evaded and then gave her the cold shoulder for asking. But seeing her tonight, with tears in her eyes, the coldness is gone. “My father has never been in the picture. I’ve never met him.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even asked you about something so personal.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. It was a simple question.”

She glides her toes lazily over the water, and I give her a moment before I press on. “So tell me, who were you talking to?”

And this time, she’s the one who avoids the question in order to ask her own. “Why are you so standoffish?”

“I didn’t mean to be.”

She arches a brow at my lie, and I chuckle at her forwardness.

“Okay, fine. I meant to be,” I admit.

“Is that your nature, or is it something you reserve for me? Because I’m not going to lie, you’re giving me a complex.”

“I don’t hold enough clout to give anyone a complex.”

She smiles and tilts her head back to look at the stars.

“Last time,” I state, waiting for her to give her attention back to me, and when she does, I ask again, “Who were you talking to?”

The way she looks at me knocks all the confidence I pretend to have on its ass, and I wonder if she can see through the sham.

“My dad. I’m supposed spend my spring break with him, but . . .” She shrugs and looks down at the water beneath our feet.

“But what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Now look who’s being standoffish,” I say to ease her tension, and it works when I see the corner of her mouth lift. “Why were you crying?”

“Because . . .” She fidgets her hands. “Because when he left my mom, I felt like he wanted to leave me, too. He’s remarried now, and she has a son who he gives all his attention to, while I’m on the outside looking in. It’s just . . . it doesn’t feel good to be forgotten.”

“This is the same guy who used to take you to car shows?”

She nods. “He hasn’t even bothered to call me or even text since we moved.”

“Why go visit him?”

“I don’t want to, but my mother already bought the plane ticket. She’s doing what she can to keep my father in my life, but I know it hurts her.”

“When do you leave?”

“Next weekend.”

I pick up her phone, which has been sitting between us, swipe the screen, and add my cell to her contacts while she watches me. When I hand the phone to her, I say, “In case you need a distraction while you’re there.”

“And what about you? Where will you be?”

“Working.”

“You’re not going anywhere?”

It’s now that I regret opening myself up to this girl and giving her my number. It’s the reminder that we come from two very different worlds, which she is unaware of. I’ve never taken a vacation in my life. This town is the only place I’ve ever seen, but Adaline . . . I can only imagine all the places she’s already experienced in her short life.

“Not this year,” I tell her before pulling my feet out of the water, and she quickly follows.

“I should probably get going.”

“I’ll walk you inside.”