Page 143 of Cruel Demands

My body goes cold before my thoughts catch up. I stare at it, standing over Taylor, for long enough that she begins to stir. Her eyes open lazily, and for one brief moment a gentle smile crosses her face before she remembers that she’s angry at me. Then she sees the laptop in my hands, and her anger is magnified. The smile disappears. “What are you doing?” she demands, her voice sharp and accusatory.

“I was closing it.” I hate my voice, petulant like a small boy. I can close a laptop in my own house.

“You were reading it.”

“I saw the screen when I was preventing your computer from falling on the floor.”

“So you were snooping.”

“If you did not want me to see that you were looking at flights, you should not be falling asleep in strange places with your laptop in your lap.” I cannot lie that I do not care she was looking them up, but I care much more that she hid it from me.

“Now you are watching me sleep too?”

“Gospodi!” Lord! “I am not watching you sleep. I just passed by the room.”

“Of course you did.”

“I am not trying to control you,” I say.

“Then stop.”

I move to sit closer to her. Her eyes narrow immediately. I stop. That reaction bothers me. Not fear. Resistance. She expects me to corner her. She feels trapped. And worse, she is. I cannot let her go. “Why do you want to leave?”

“I didn’t say I do.”

“You were checking availability.”

“I was curious.”

“About going home?” I try to keep my voice neutral, but I can hear myself failing.

“People are allowed to check things.”

“Taylor.”

“What?” There’s something strained in her voice. Something close to panic.

I lower mine. “Do not leave.” Her face changes, but it is not enough. “Please.”

Taylor looks at me as though I have struck her. The room becomes very quiet.

“I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” she says.

Before I can answer, the door opens behind me, and my mother enters. Her gaze moves from Taylor to me, then to the closed laptop. I am too panicked to stop now. “Then do nothing,” I say to Taylor, ignoring my mother.

“That isn’t an option,” Taylor says back, looking behind me at my mother.

“It is,” I beg.

“For you, maybe. Your life has stayed the same. I’m in limbo here.”

“If Taylor wants to go,” my mother says, “you must let her.”

“No.”

Taylor flinches. I hear it too late.

My mother’s face hardens. “You see?” she asks Taylor quietly.