"I want to love you again, but I don't know how. Maybe I'm not like the moon. The moon is pure, an incandescent light in the midst of bitter darkness.
I have never been that forgiving."
WARNING: This is Book Three. If you have not read "affluenza"...
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BEING INSIDE OF Braylen's car makes me think of the afternoon we hooked up outside of the grocery store, rather than all the other good memories we had in here. Like the time we drove back from our trip to San Francisco when he told me he loved me for the first time, though I wasn't meant to hear it. That memory wasn't the first to hit my mind as I slid into his driver's seat. Instead, all I could think about was him finishing beneath me and telling me were nothing to one another in the same minute.
Braylen taps his fingers on his thigh nervously as I drive off. I sit in silence, glad that I'd only had half a beer nearly an hour ago and was fit to drive him and disappointed that the camaraderie we'd rediscovered in the bathroom had fizzled out by now. A long sigh leaves my lips and Braylen shifts at the noise. "You didn't have to drive me home, you know?" he says, voice taut. "I'm an adult, I know not to drive back drunk. Which, I'm not."
"I know that," I respond. He wasn't drunk, hardly even tipsy. I wondered if those two shots were the only thing he drank tonight and if he'd only agreed to me driving him home for appearances. I didn't want to let my heart wonder if there was another reason—if he just wanted to be around me a little longer. "It's not an inconvenience. Your apartment's close to my house, so."
Braylen's quiet for a moment. Then, he says, "You have a house now?"
"Yeah," I respond, switching lanes on the freeway. "On Prairie. It's far too big for me, since the only permanent residents there are me and Artemis, and the white picket fence is way too American Dream for me, but—"
"Artemis?" Braylen interrupts.
I glance over at him. "My cat."
His lips make a tiny 'oh,' and I find myself entranced by the pink of his lips. Deciding that staring at him any longer would make me as competent as a drunk driver, I turn back to the road. "Isla doesn't live with you?" he asks after a moment.
My fingers clench the wheel tightly, and I know he notices, just as well as I know that he knows why. "Sorry," he mutters. "That's not really any of my business."
"Not really," I agree, but my voice was soft. "We split it. I get her half the time, Eden gets her the other half."
Braylen nods his head at the details of our arrangement but doesn't comment on it. There'd been a time when Eden and I lived together and raised Isla at the same time, but we were quick to discover that this method worked best for both of us. I loved Eden, but the two of us had the worst tempers and could hardly ever agree on anything. We both decided that it'd be best for Isla if we took care of her in turns after living together for three years, though every week we still do something together as a family. I enjoyed those days the most, I think.
Braylen scratches his nose. "She probably doesn't remember me," he mumbles sadly. "Isla, I mean. I haven't actually seen her since she was four."
