I oversleep the next morning. The power came back on sometime in the early hours of the morning, and the flashing light on my alarm clock says it’s three in the morning, but the sun shining through the window says otherwise. In any case, my alarm never went off.
My watch reveals that it’s after eight, so I stumble out of bed in the direction of Victoria’s room. I peek in on her and she’s out of bed, which means Adam must’ve gotten her up. The television is on, but her eyes are shut and her head is sagging to the side in her headrest. She’s sound asleep.
I go downstairs to make her breakfast, even though I know she won’t eat it, but I find Adam already down there, washing dishes. He smiles cheerfully at me, with no suggestion to the fact that something really wrong almost happened between us last night.
Reading Victoria’s diary entry last night about him throwing a fit over the toothpaste revealed another side to Adam I had never seen before. He doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would do something like that. But in a way, it makes me like him more. Like Victoria’s friend Carol used to say, he seems like Mr. Perfect. It’s good to know that he has flaws like everyone else. Nobody likes a person who’s too perfect.
It’s also good to see he made up with his parents. Whatever animosity he had towards them seems to be long gone. Maybe Victoria’s accident had something to do with that.
“Eva couldn’t make it in this morning so I took care of Victoria,” he says. He puts a plate on the drying rack. “Everything is taken care of.”
I go for the cabinet with the oatmeal and reach for the box. “I’ll fix her some breakfast.”
“It’s okay. I told you I took care of it.”
I pause in the middle of opening a packet of oatmeal. “You fed her?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I gave her some tube feeds. She was too asleep to eat anyway. She never eats in the morning, does she?”
I feel a little guilty about that. I always at least try to give her a chance to eat, but he’s right that she seldom does in the morning. I’m usually lucky if she takes one bite.
“If you don’t need anything else,” Adam says, “I’m going to head upstairs to do some writing. I need to get some work done today.”
“Are you working on a new book?”
A smile touches his lips. “Yes. But I’m at the stage where I feel like everything I’m writing is crap. Yesterday I tore up five pages and tossed them in the trash.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m sure it’s not crap. All these reviews online say you’re this amazingly brilliant writer. And you’re a number one bestseller.”
He waves a hand. “No. I’m just lucky.” “Bullshit.”
“It’s true.” He shrugs. “There are a ton of talented writers out there. I was lucky enough to land a good agent, who landed me a good publishing deal, and that opened a lot of doors for me. But it could’ve gone another way.”
I lean against the kitchen counter. “Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?”
“Pretty much.” His eyes become distant. “In life, things never go quite the way you want them to. But when you’re creating your own fictional world, you can make everything happen exactly how you want it to. That’s what I love about writing.”
“I know what you mean. I would definitely like to rewrite parts of my life story.”
“How about you?” He raises his eyebrows. “What are your career aspirations?”
They always asked me this in school. What do you want to be when you grow up, Sylvia? I never had a good answer. My parents were sensible, middle-class folks who thought that I should be a teacher. After all, I sucked at school—and don’t they say that those who can’t do teach? But I never had a passion for teaching. I felt like I was just drifting aimlessly through life until I met Freddy. I thought he was my lifeboat until he abandoned me like I was nothing.
“I don’t know.” I drop my eyes. “That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m old enough to know what I want to be when I grow up. Since, you know, I am grown-up.”
Adam laughs. “That’s okay. You have a lot of time to decide. And in the meantime, we can use you here as long as you want to stay. It’s nice
having you here.”
I squeeze my fists together. He seems unwilling to address the elephant in the room. Does he not realize how close we came to kissing last night? Maybe he has the right idea though. Maybe it’s better to just pretend it never happened.
After all, it’s never going to happen again.
