Echo, I don’t need the details of my mother’s first-time experience. I cringed with disgust.
A feeling of victory pulsed through me a millisecond before Echo said, Hmm, but I am more like an older sister, remember, so this shouldn’t bug you in the least.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I decided to say nothing at all. Lord knew I didn’t have any experience to contribute to Echo’s conclusion about her first time being abnormal. After what I had just felt through her memory, I wasn’t sure I wanted to either—ever. Still feeling unsettled, I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, tiptoed out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and toward the kitchen on silent, bare feet.
What are you doing, Eden?
“Why do you ask questions you already know the answers to Echo, for the love of God, you can hear my thoughts and feel my intentions whether I want you to or not.” I rolled my eyes and stepped onto the cool sandstone tile of the kitchen floor.
The room was dimly lit by moonlight that was streaming through the large window over the double sink. As I opened the refrigerator door, the artificial light drowned out the soft lunar glow. I pulled the jug of orange juice from the shelf and peered around the fridge door to make sure I was still alone. Satisfied that I was, I drank directly from the container, recapped the juice, placed it back on the shelf, and closed the fridge. I knew Dad would have a fit if he ever caught me drinking straight from the carton.
You know Daryl would have a cow if he knew you did that as often as you do, right?
“Well then, I guess it’s a blessing that you can’t blab to him about it now isn’t it,” I said in the quietest of whispers as I left the kitchen and headed back toward my room. “Besides, I have bigger things to worry about than Dad getting mad. I am scared to go back to sleep for fear of seeing something more revealing than just girly gossip about you and my biological father, God forbid.”
I stretched out on my bed, intent on not going back to sleep. A glance at my bedside clock told me it was three in the morning, still four hours before I’d typically get up for the day. I turned my attention to the slow rotation of the fan blades above my head, and before I knew it, sleep had found me again. This time instead of bearing witness to Echo’s memories, I was a spectator in my very own fantasy of Drew and I doing everything but looking for a space station in the night sky.
Chapter Five
Whiplash
The library was one of my favorite places on earth, and it wasn't because I had an infinite love for books—even if that was true. The reason I loved the library was that it was one of the few places I could find almost complete quiet. There were no whispers there that people thought I couldn’t hear. Usually, I came alone but this time was different. Drew was with me. It had been a couple of days since our first date, and he’d been hounding me, via text, about hanging out again—texts I had to diligently erase to keep my dad from seeing. He sat across from me at the large table with a monster of a book in front of him. More often than not, I would see him looking at me instead of the book. I knew within five minutes of walking into the library that reading wasn't his thing.
“Remind me again why we’re here,” he asked.
“Because I want to know more about Louisiana.”
I resisted the urge to laugh. It was the fourth time he’d asked me that. I could tell he was chomping at the bit to get the hell out of the library. He was just too nice a person to say so. The only reason he was there was that I'd asked him to come.
“And you want to know more about Louisiana because you got new information that your biological father is from there?”
“Mm-hmm,” I answered because we’d already gone over that point multiple times as well. But true to Drew’s nature, the vague explanation wasn’t enough to satisfy his curiosity. So, he kept asking the same questions, I assume to try and get me to tell him more.
“Who told you again?” He winged his left eyebrow up. That look drove me crazy, and I was almost certain he knew it too.
I sighed and with a thump, closed the informational book about New Orleans. He winged up the right brow to join the left, and I laughed at an average volume, which had the librarian shushing me with a pointed finger and a stern glare. I leaned across the table toward him, and he mirrored my movements. In the quietest possible whisper, I asked, “Are you ready to leave?”
“Oh—can we,” he whispered with over-exaggerated excitement, and I had to stifle my laugh to keep from falling victim to another death stare from the librarian.
I put the book back on the shelf, and we headed for the door. Drew fell in step beside me and grasped my hand as we walked out into the humid afternoon air. He did it like it was the most natural thing in the world. As we strolled to his car, I took the opportunity to admire how he looked in his relax fit jeans, blood donor t-shirt, and Chiefs ball cap. All that looked fabulous on him—except that we were in the first week of August. He was crazy! It was ninety degrees with at least eighty percent humidity. That would put the heat index at around a hundred degrees.
“Why on
