Rogue Wave, Isabel Jolie [ink ebook reader .TXT] 📗

me on the sand. I fought the desire to pull her onto my lap. I tried to not remember how she felt against me, how it felt to hold her close as we talked. I shoved it all down. I pressed against my sternum, seeking to alleviate the building pressure. Get on with it.

“Do you remember when I told you about the girl in Somalia, the one who died?”

She nodded.

“I adopted her sister. I wanted to give her a different life.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it would work out. I couldn’t legally adopt her from Somalia. The U.S. doesn’t allow it. My lawyer had some ideas. She pulled some strings. In some parts of the world, with enough money, anything is possible. I knew this, but I didn’t think it would really apply to me. I thought by pursuing the adoption I was keeping her alive and safe. And, I mean, it’s good it all worked out. It probably sounds like I’m not happy about it?” I questioned. Her blank expression reminded me to get on with it. “I’m just trying to explain that it didn’t really feel like something that would really happen. Not any time soon. And then it did.”

“Why leave like that? With a letter?”

A white seagull flew overhead, squawking high above us.

“I…I don’t like goodbyes.”

“That’s a shitty excuse.” She pushed her shoulders back. Her hands lay still in her lap.

“It’s not an excuse. It’s the truth. And besides, telling you…how was I supposed to tell the twenty-two-year-old girl I’m seeing that I adopted a twelve-year-old girl?”

“Just like that.”

“It was a nail in the coffin. There was no point in hashing it out.”

“Why? Because I’m twenty-two? I’m actually twenty-three, but…” Her hands waffled in the air for a moment. “Why are you so caught up on age? Why does my age matter so much to you?”

I scooped sand into my hand and let it filter through my fingers. My throat tightened, and swallowing became a chore. I gazed out over the ocean, seeking the calm it brought me, matching my breaths to the roll of the inbound waves.

“It’s not your age, per se…it’s that you have so much in front of you. It’s all that you have in front of you. I refuse to get in the way of that.”

“So, your fear is that I’ll fall for you so hard I won’t finish my master’s? I’ll follow you around in hopes of becoming your stay at home wife? Something like that? Is that your fear?”

Shame threatened to drown me. I’d never put it in words, but hearing it said made me feel foolish. Egotistical. Conservative.

“I’m a single father. You need to be out having fun with kids your own age.” Even as I said the words, I hated every single one of them and on some level recognized them for what they were—an ineffectual defense.

“Right,” she said, drawing it out, calling me out with one slow word. She stood and dusted the sand from her legs. Tiny grains flew at me, biting my raw skin as they hit. “For the record, how you treated me was incredibly immature. At a certain point, age becomes a number and nothing more. I’d say I’ve been the more mature party in our relationship.” I bowed my head and dug my toes into the sand. “When I got that letter, I didn’t know what to think. I assumed you were in danger. That you had to leave. I would’ve been beyond panicked, except Poppy spoke to Gabe, and he told her you were safe. But he didn’t think you were going to return.”

I hadn’t planned on it. But Gabe also told Poppy what I’d wanted him to tell her so Luna wouldn’t be scared. So she’d move on. The kind of thing I’d do in high school, letting a friend talk to a friend.

The words “I’m sorry” were on my lips, but I couldn’t force myself to say them. Those words might be a bridge to reconciliation, and that wasn’t the answer. I stood by my decision. How I handled it might not have been the best, but as much as I wanted Luna, she and I couldn’t be together.

“Why did you return?” Her question held anger, the emotion I’d hoped for when I decided to leave a letter behind.

“Jasmine, my daughter. This seems like a good place for her to adjust. I also…just, practical reasons. I didn’t want to continue living in Connecticut.”

“You spent the holidays with your family?”

“With my brother. His wife and kids. We spent Christmas and New Year’s with them.”

“That must have been nice.”

“It was good. It’s hard to be a guest for too long. Hard to have a guest for too long…”

Luna wrapped her arms around herself, her lips in a firm line, stoic. The air between us blew cold and hard. I hated it. My Luna was warmth and sun and the stars and the moon. A guiding light. The cold wall in front of me, that wasn’t my Luna. But it was what I created.

“If Jasmine wants to come to the center, I’d be happy to spend time with her. We have a number of teen science programs.” Her professional demeanor sliced me.

I swallowed and forced a response. “She barely knows English.”

“It would be good for her.” She held her chin high.

There was no reason to fight her. “A teen science program…I’ll talk to Cali about it. I’m sure you’re right.”

The topaz in her light brown irises held an icy glaze. All her warmth gone. I’d done that. And dammit, that was never my intent.

Chapter 26

Luna

“There’s my Luna. I’ve missed you, sweet one. Come out and have some tea with me.”

“How’ve you been?” I wrapped my arms around Alice and soaked up her warmth. I could bask in her grandmotherly aura all day. True, she spoke of spirits and pails of water and owned an ungodly number of cats, but in her presence the kookiness dissipated.

“I’ve been good.” She