PULSE

Chapter Fourteen

[ OCTOBER 10 ]

By Saturday, Ava had called me four times, and I hadn't answered a single time. I was holed up in my room after having slept late into the day, just sitting on my bed and bouncing a tennis ball off of the wall. It wasn't that I was too busy or had better things to have than return her calls; in fact, I was mostly lying around and waiting for her to call again, so I could ignore her. Again.

Even when I didn't want to see or hear from her, I still found myself waiting for her to call.

It was half past eleven when I finally wandered out of my bedroom and into the kitchen, where Candace was making lunch. I almost never ate what she could; whenever possible, I would eat out, or order in, or make myself microwavable noodles. Today, though, I peeked at the food she was stirring in a pot on the stove, then slid into a chair at the kitchen table to wait. She turned around at the sound of the chair sliding across the floor, staring at me and doing her best to seem unsurprised.

She stuttered only a bit when she spoke, fighting away her shock. "Aidan?"

I tore a paper towel off of the roll on the table, folding it in front of me as I asked, "Sorry, is there not enough for me?"

She was silent for a brief moment. "No, no. There's plenty."

I knew that she was lying—that there was only enough food for one—but by the look on her face, I could tell that being able to feed me was more important to her than eating. She lifted the pot off of the stove and set it on the table in front of me on an oven mitt. I looked into the pot and found fried rice with chicken, still steaming with heat. I served myself as she took a seat at the table across from me, resting her chin on her hands.

"You're not eating?" I asked as I dropped a large scoop of rice onto my plate.

"No," she said. "I'm not very hungry."

Another lie. But I didn't mind lies too much.

My real parents could have lied a little more. Some people just didn't lie enough.

"So," she began as I started to eat. "How've you been? You were so busy, but the last few days, you've hardly left the house."

"I'm fine," I replied.

"Ah," she said, her eyes trailing down toward the table. "Do you mind me asking what was keeping you so busy?"

I slowly chewed my rice and dropped my fork on the plate, reaching for a glass of water. "I was with friends."

Her eyes flicked suddenly up toward me. "Friends? Did you meet them through work?"
 "Is this an interrogation?" I asked, glancing up toward her. She swallowed uncomfortably, so I sighed, looking back toward my food. "I sort of found work through them."

"That's great," she said. I could see her in my peripheral smiling, but didn't look fully at her. After a few moments of silence, she took a deep breath and asked, "Do you think I can meet them some time?"

"What, like you're my mom?" I replied, glancing toward her. For the second time, looking at her took some of my resolve, so instead of refusing her again, I conceded to give her what she wanted. "I don't think so. I don't think we'll be hanging out much anymore."

"Did they decide that, or did you?"

"What does it matter?" I demanded.

"Because if they don't want to see you anymore, you probably can't fix that. But if it's you, I think you should try."