AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His smile brightens. “And I don’t love you.”
He does the dishes, throwing water everywhere, while I lay on the couch and zone out to an incomprehensible Italian game show. My phone buzzes on my stomach, and I flip it over to see a video chat request from Mom. This is the first time we’ve tried out the webcam Peyton bought her. I spit in my hand and run it through my messy hair, then turn the video on.
“Mom!” I’ve never needed anything as much as I need to hug her.
“Honey, how is your trip going?” She knows we’re involved in some kind of legal issue, but not the details; she doesn’t need someone else’s nightmares mixed in with her own. “How’s the boy with the pretty eyes?” Embarrassed, I tip my phone away from Victor and turn down the volume.
“He’s fine.”
“Peyton told me you were together.” She beams at me, every inch the proud, meddling mom.
“Well, that might be a little prematu—”
I jump when Victor rests his chin on my head and wraps his arms around my neck. “Yep.”
Mom’s face lights up. “Hi! Your name is Victor, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I frown up at him, wondering where my brat went and where this gentleman game from, and he gives me an angelic smile.
“Did you two enjoy the cookies I made you?”
Victor doesn’t miss a beat. “They were a flying success.”
I choke and double up, coughing. He grabs the camera away and sits on the back of the couch, squinting at my mom’s pixelated face. “Wow, you really do look just like him. Your face looks better on you than his does, though.”
When I grab for the camera, he holds it out of my reach but tilts it so she can see both of us. Her face is about to split in half with smiling. Then she sniffles and big tears start running down her cheeks. “Mom.” I’m mortified. “Don’t cry. It’s ok.”
“I was scared I’d be gone before I got to see you find your soulmate. I’m just so happy.”
Victor’s cheeks flush, and he gives me the camera back. “Soulmate?” he mouths incredulously.
“Victor,” my mom enthuses, drawing him back into frame. I swear I’m just a bystander in this conversation now. “When you two come back, will you come over and stay with us for a while? We can go to the zoo and a ball game and a hike, and we could go thrifting, and I can teach you how to make the cookies Ethan likes, and…do you like puzzles?”
He blinks, face going blank the way it does when he’s overwhelmed. “Um, yeah,” he says faintly. “Ok.”
Seeing that he needs a moment, I turn the phone away and distract my mom with talking about her new flower garden until it’s time for her to go. When I hang up, Victor’s lying on his back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Are you ok, babe?” I sit on the floor next to him and rest my hand on his chest, letting him feel the pressure as he breathes.
His hand moves on top of mine, his thumb exploring the bones of my wrist as he turns and looks at me. This close, his eyes hold every color in the universe and none at all, strange and wild and pure.
“Is this what it’s like to be normal?” he whispers unsteadily.
Something throbs bright and painful in my chest. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Do you think—” He hesitates. “Do you think I could be normal someday?”
I can feel the tension in his body, the need to find a confined space and hide from a world that feels too big. He closes his eyes as I climb onto the couch and wrap him in a ball underneath me, pressing him into the worn leather cushions until it’s hard for him to breathe, the way he needs it. “Yeah, baby, you will. I promise.”
