I leap up from the bed, letting out a crazy peal of laughter.
“No way are we having this conversation, Mom,” I cry.
She follows me. “How do you explain it then?”
“Explain what?”
She sighs in exasperation. “This change in you. It’s like you’re suddenly in love.”
“How could you possibly tell that?”
“Because—”
“You know me. I got it.”
“Exactly.”
I bite my lip, the desire to tell her the truth almost forcing my lips open. But how can I tell mom before I’ve told Angie? How can I tell Angie?
God, this is such a mess.
“I’m not ready yet,” I say. “Maybe this will blow up in my face and there will be nothing to tell.”
But I don’t believe that for a second.
“Do you really think you can lie to me?” Mom says.
I sigh. “Okay, fine, Miss Mind Reader. No, I don’t believe that. But it doesn’t change the fact I’m really not in the mood to discuss this. I have to get ready for my date.”
“Ooh, look at Miss All Grown Up,” Mom teases. “Excuse me for trying to get some information out of my own daughter. But, fine, I’ll leave you to your romance.”
She laughs, sounding like the mom I remember before the illness struck, and even if she’s annoying me and even if I’m cringing harder than I have in a long, long time, I don’t care because it means she’s here, she’s healthy, she’s her.
She leaves the room and I rush to the door, closing it, resting my head against the wood as my heart thunders through me heavily.
I wonder what mom would say if I told her the truth about me and Trent. I wonder if she’d laugh or cry or clap or… or what?
I wonder if she’d understand that the age gap means nothing to me. The complications mean nothing to me.
I stride across the room and take the dress from the box, holding it up as I stand in front of the full-length mirror. The material drapes over my body, and I fight the urge to see all the imperfections, all the ways I could be prettier, fitter, different.
I remember a fantasy I had on my eighteenth birthday, waking up and lolling in that half-awake state that’s not quite sleep and not quite full wakefulness. It’s a state where dreams seem more real than usual and as I lay there, I became convinced that Trent was lying beside me.
Angie, Mom, and I had gone out for a big meal the night before. I was feeling full and curvier than normal from all the food… I was feeling the exact opposite of the cheerleaders in high school and the billboard bombshells who make me feel inadequate every time I pass them.
I wanted to move, to reach across and touch Trent’s shoulder so he’d roll over and aim that silver fox smirk at me, his green eyes glistening.
“You’re beautiful,” I imagined him saying, in a deep husky voice that made me believe him. “You’re everything I want in a woman. I love your curves. I love your dimples. I love everything about you.”
I wanted to move, but I couldn’t.
Because then I’d break the spell.
That’s what it’s like now with telling Angie. It’s the same as reaching out would’ve been then, disturbing that half-awake half-asleep world we’re living in, where any nudge can cause the fantasy to shatter into a million pieces.
I sigh and turn away from the mirror, striding across the bedroom and dropping onto the bed.
I want time to both hurry up and slow down.
The thought of seeing Trent again sends warm shivers through me, certainty bursting inside of me, telling me that it’s the only thing I can do.
And yet I saw the beast in his eyes at the cabin, the hunger flaring.
How long can I expect him to hold back in respect to my virginity?
And, even if I work up the courage to give it to him – and he’s somehow not disappointed – how the heck are we going to go back after that? If Angie says we can’t be together, can we respect her wishes?
I close my eyes, bite down, wishing away those torturous thoughts.
There are too many questions.
Chapter Twelve
Trent
I sit around the corner from Tessa’s house, feeling like I’m doing something wrong.
The thought pisses me the hell off.
We’re not doing something wrong. We’re doing what we were put on this planet to do.
I should laugh the thought away, call myself crazy for even letting it work its way into my mind.
But the hours I’ve spent apart from Tessa today – working out, arranging dinner, and her dress – have made me even more certain there’s no world where I can walk away from this.
My mind has returned to her again and again, and not just the way she looked when she came for me in the cabin. I think about her shy smiles on the hiking trail, the way she bites her lip when she’s nervous, the widening of her eyes as I leaned in close to kiss her for the first time.