“Enemy that kidnapped her, obviously,” he says.
I grin happily at him. Sometimes when I look at him, I feel like all the world is sliding into the right place, puzzle pieces in my chest that are finally coming together. It’s scary and it’s exhilarating and consuming all at once. The weirdest part is, even though things can’t possibly feel right, they do.
The truth is…I think I’ve fallen in love with him.
I think I love him.
Oh, you love him.
“What are you smiling at?” he asks.
“You,” I tell him, poking him again. I know he’s ticklish there, right down his sides.
“Stop that.” He actually giggles. It’s the cutest thing in the world.
Fuck, I really am in love with him, aren’t I?
Since when did this happen?
When you started letting him in.
When you stopped being and started becoming.
“Hey, I got an email today,” I tell him casually.
The other good thing about Fred’s place is that he has wi-fi from the satellite. It works every other day it seems, everything has to load without HTML, you can’t surf the web or do anything fun, but we’ve still been able to communicate in emails. I’ve been in touch with my parents ever since. Actually, I’ve never talked to them so much in my life. There’s something about being in such an uneasy, foreign situation that makes you want to reach out to your loved ones. Makes you realize how much they matter to you. New perspective and all that.
“From your parents?”
I shake my head. “No. Actually, from a job I applied for just before I left for New Zealand. Feels like another life, I totally forgot about it.”
He studies my face. “And?”
I shrug. “They want to do an interview.”
“That’s great,” he says. He sounds happy for me. In a way, I wish he wasn’t. Does that mean he wants me to go back to the States?
“Maybe. I mean, great to know that it’s a possibility. But…I’ve had some time to think. I’m not going to go for the interview.”
“Maybe not now, but when you get back…”
I shake my head again. “I don’t…”
Want to go back?
Want to leave you?
“Don’t what?” he asks.
“I don’t want to go back,” I tell him, giving him a quick smile. “I don’t want those kinds of jobs anymore. I want something…I want to do something for my soul.”
“You’re not going to join a monastery, are you?”
I laugh. “No. Could you imagine? Though my parents would be very proud.”
“What do you want to do? What does your soul tell you?”
“I think…” I say carefully, still mulling it over. “I think I want to go to school. I never went. I was going to, but then as you know, I got the job and that was it.”
“School? Like uni?”
“College? Yeah.”
“Where? What are you going to study?”
“Okay…don’t laugh, but I think I want to do marine biology.”
He frowns. “Why would I laugh? I think that’s perfect. That’s what you always wanted to do.”
“I know, I know. It’s just, I’m old.”
“You’re, what, twenty-eight? That’s not old. You’re never too old to go back to school.”
“Look, now you’re just thinking of Billy Madison.”
“It’s true. People do it all the time. A lot of people can’t afford to go to university right away. They go when they can.”
“Well, that’s another thing. I have saved up money but school is so damn expensive. Plus, I only have my high school grades to go on. I sucked at math, barely passed, and that’s so important for anything to do with science.”
“Daisy,” he says to me, sitting up. “You’re smart. You’re going to have no problems with this, I promise you.”
“I was smart,” I tell him. “I feel like I’ve dumbed down over the years.”
“You’re going to have to go for this, you know it. You’ll kick yourself if you don’t at least try.”
I rub my lips together, suddenly too shy to say the next part.
“I was thinking…maybe I could go to school in New Zealand.”
There. I said it.
It has been said.
Tai blinks at me. “New Zealand?”
Oh crap. Oh no. Oh, that was the wrong thing to say.
“I mean, I’m not saying I’ll be near you. No pressure! I just thought…you know, somewhere. Maybe down south where Lacey and Richard are.”
He frowns, shaking his head. Okay, I guess going to school to be near them is a bit of a stretch. “Well, that’s fine. I can come to you.”
“What?”
You can come to me?
“Daisy, are you serious about this?”
I nod, wanting him to go back to what he said before, that he could come to me. “I think so.”
“You think so? Do you really want to move to New Zealand, to go to school?”
“Yes?”
He puts his hand at my cheek and searches my eyes deeply, looking for something inside me. I want him to see what I feel for him. “You’ll stay with me?” he asks, brows furrowed.