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“You were watching me?”
Busted. “W-well, I was just mentally calculating how much of our product you were consuming.”
“Of course.” There’s a dry humor in his tone, but he doesn’t call me out further.
”Please don’t tell my parents what I just said,” I request. “About dying, I mean. They still have hope that I’m going to get better.” Motioning to the barn, I say, “I’m doing this for them. I don’t want them suffering from money trouble after I’m gone.”
Ellister is silent for several seconds before he growls with frustration. Raking a hand through his hair, he rears back and glares at me. I’m shocked to see his lip lifted with an angry snarl as his pale eyes seem to glow in the moonlight.
“How can you be so accepting of this fate?” he bursts out, raising his voice so much that his shout reverberates back at us from the vinyl siding of the store.
My mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. “Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“Fight.”
“That’s just the thing… this sickness, it’s draining me. I’m exhausted. I don’t have the energy to fight.”
“This world has many medical advances. Technology I can’t even fathom. There has to be a treatment.”
“How are they supposed to treat something they can’t diagnose?”
Another quiet stretch. I’m wondering if he’s going to yell at me some more, but then his shoulders sag, and he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“It’s just—” he starts, “this isn’t supposed to be happening to you.”
“It’s a little late for denial. Believe me, I tried it.” I let a couple seconds pass as I muster up the courage to ask him to do something that’s probably unethical in his job. “I need you to do me a favor.”
His gaze locks with mine. “Where I come from, favors aren’t free.”
I’ve noticed Ellister loves to mention where he comes from a lot, yet I don’t know anything about the place.
Instead of asking him about his home, I blurt out, “Don’t approve my dad for the loan.”
“The loan?”
“With the bank. Whatever he’s asking for, deny it. You can do that, right?”
“I’m afraid much of this situation is out of my control.”
Well, shit. It was worth a shot.
Upbeat music, not as loud now that we’re farther away, echoes into the night from the bright interior of the barn in distorted chords.
Even though Ellister and I aren’t dancing anymore, I can still feel him in all the places where we’d been touching—my hands, my stomach, my nipples.
I’m practically vibrating, and I’m addicted to the sensations this man gives me.
I want more.
Shifting the conversation, Ellister states, “It sounds like you’ve had a very enchanting life.”
Enchanting? Is that how I’d describe my upbringing? Yeah, I guess I would.
“It’s the best,” I whisper.
“So, you’ve been fulfilled, then?” A concerned line divides his eyebrows as he gives me the intense stare I’m getting used to.
“If you’re asking if I’m at peace with dying, no. I’m not. That’s the thing about a place like this. I haven’t traveled a lot, but I don’t have to go anywhere else to know this is as good as it gets. I suppose I should be happy that my life has been so great. But to be honest, it makes it harder. How am I supposed to look forward to heaven when I’m already here?”
