Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“I’m wiped, too.” Standing, he moved to turn out the lights. The room was washed in darkness, and he bumped into the side of the bed and tripped over a shoe as he made his way back across the room.
Ren laughed. “You okay?”
“I’m good.” He settled on his little bed, pulling the blanket up to his waist. They both fell into silence, and in the blackness the room seemed to shrink. He thought about what Mary had said earlier and wanted to reassure Ren in some way that although they barely knew each other and the circumstances of this trip were weird, she was safe. She could sleep.
“This is like a sleepover,” she whispered, her voice giddy even with exhaustion shading it. Fitz realized she really wasn’t nervous around him at all. “I’ve only ever seen a sleepover in Grease.”
“Wanna pierce our ears?”
She burst out laughing. “You’ve seen Grease?”
“Everyone has seen Grease, kid. It’s a classic.”
He could hear her shifting in bed, could hear her legs kicking away the covers. God, he was just so aware of her.
“Have you had a sleepover?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“What do boys do at them?”
“Mostly we eat junk food and play video games.” He looked toward the bed in the darkness, wondering for the first time what her life had really been like for the past twenty-two years. “You really never had a sleepover?”
“No.”
A car passed outside the room, the tires crunching on the asphalt outside.
“Were there just no kids your age nearby?” he asked.
“Oh, there were a few,” she said. “But Gloria always said kids should sleep in their own beds at night. She didn’t like me going over to other people’s houses very much.”
He closed his eyes, marveling at how different their lives had been from each other. Ren’s overprotective mother ensured she never spent a night away from her own bed. For many years, Fitz had no mother and was grateful when he had a bed to sleep in. They were both sort of broken, just in totally different ways.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think being away from home is how kids learn to be polite in front of other people, how to be a guest.”
A long stretch of silence followed. He was beginning to wonder if she was asleep when her voice rose out of the darkness, tinged with sadness. “I’m starting to think Gloria was wrong about some things.”
He had no idea what to say to this, so he let it pass, and they fell back into silence.
“Do you snore?” she asked finally.
“No one has ever told me I snore.”
“I don’t, either.”
“How would you know?” he asked. “You’ve never had a sleepover before.”
“Good point.” She laughed self-consciously, and the sound hit him in a new tender spot in his chest. “Good night, Fitz.”
“Night, Ren.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REN
Ren didn’t remember falling asleep. She remembered the gentle rumble of Fitz’s voice and then nothing, not even the relief of letting go of the day. After a few hours of deep, dreamless slumber, her eyes drifted open, and in the darkness of the hotel room with only the even rhythm of Fitz’s breathing and the occasional rattle and drone of the heater, she was trapped completely alone with her thoughts.
Sometimes, at the most grueling points of the planting or harvesting seasons, Ren would tell herself to shut off all musing and keep moving forward. Don’t think about the relief of being done, or the bounty at the other end. Just complete one task, then the next, and the next. Yesterday was a little like that. She was moving toward a goal, not thinking about the possibility of a father somewhere ahead of her, or of the two worried parents back in Idaho.
But once consciousness opened the spigot on her thoughts, she couldn’t turn it off. Worry rose like a salty tide, guilt and doubt and regret close on its heels. She was foolish to have left the way she did, impulsive. In two and a half days Gloria and Steve would drive to campus looking for their daughter, and she would be all the way across the country. She had to keep them from coming to campus on Friday. No matter how angry she was at whatever lie the DNA test might have unearthed, she couldn’t just vanish.
A letter wouldn’t get there in time, and there was no landline on the homestead so there wasn’t a way to call—
Her eyes widened, the nightstand taking shape in the dim light. It was early Wednesday, the day her parents went to town. If Gloria and Steve stuck to their routine, they’d be at the Hill Valley Five and Dime at seven, right when it opened.
At six, she got up and used the restroom, brushed her teeth, and climbed back into bed. Fitz was still out cold. At six fifteen, she opened a couple of drawers, closing them softly at first, and then less softly. He was still out. At six thirty, she feigned a coughing attack, and he slept through the entire thing. And at six forty-five, she said his name three times—nothing.