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Aw crap. He was smiling when I pulled away and now his smile is fading fast.
I place a hand over his heart, and it’s racing.
“Many years ago,” he says, and just like that his accent changes, thickens, “something bad happened and it’s not over, but nobody believed me then or now, and I… I’m afraid I was right, and that it’s all going to hell.”
“What do you mean?” He’s talking in riddles, and the fear in his eyes matches the fear that’s lancing through me. “Why did you run? From where? What didn’t they believe?”
But he only shakes his head and gets out of the car, heading toward the shop.
***
The day passes in a blur. Customers file in and out. Lots of students, too, preparing for the upcoming semester, which reminds me I should get some reading done myself. With everything going on, I forgot I’m in the middle of my studies.
Hey, it’s not every day your fantasy boyfriends waltz into your life and become reality.
One of them, though, is a no-show today. Joel. He doesn’t call or show up with coffee. When I ask Jet about it in the afternoon, he shrugs.
“Was it the kiss?” I ask him, a cold lump of dread settling in my stomach. “Crap, I shouldn’t have asked that of you, I shouldn’t have—”
“We wanted it, Candy sugar.” He pulls me in for a quick, one-armed hug and I melt against his side. “He wanted it. He’s just resisting.”
“Resistance is futile,” I say automatically.
“Right.”
Yet, despite his reassuring words, he looks stressed out, and I can tell it bothers him, too, that Joel vanished today.
To take his mind off this topic I brought up anyway, I turn the conversation elsewhere.
“Hey, about the GED you’re studying for. I talked to Donna, did I tell you? Convinced her to give you some time to find your diploma.”
He shivers, leans a little against me. “Thanks.”
“Do you know when you’re going to take the test?”
“Not ready yet.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. I took
the mock test online. Failed it. Spectacularly.” He huffs. “You saw how it is for me. Reading takes forever. Can’t concentrate. And writing is even worse.”
“Okay.” I frown as I try to put together all the pieces. “You’re not as bad as you think, you know. In reading, at least. And you concentrate enough to draw a comic, though, don’t you?”
“That’s different. I do it in pieces, whenever I feel like it. And it’s pictures. Not text.”
“So the problem is the words. And the time needed focusing on them?”
When he nods, another thought strikes me. “Do you have any other symptoms?”
“Symptoms?”
I frown, trying to remember. “Do you sometimes lose track of time? Forget things? Are you often late at appointments?”
“Heh, all the time. Just ask Joel, I drive him crazy.”
Check.
