Page 37 of Lost in the Moonlight

Mom’s eyes widened. “You were at the cemetery in the dark? Alone?”

I fiddled with the seam of one of the patches on my bag as I collected all my thoughts and emotions. Finally, I looked up and said calmly, “We’re safe here. You said so yourself. I don’t need to worry about the Viceroys.”

“This isn’t about the Viceroys, kiddo. You’re a beautiful woman, in a college town. Other things can happen. It’s bad enough you walk to work in the dead of the night without lingering in dark places.”

“I always text you that I’ve made it safe.”

“But you weren’t, and you didn’t tell me. And worse, you went in alone again this morning.”

I hated the sadness that returned to her eyes when I’d been seeing so much light in the last few weeks. And the truth was, I was sure I’d blown everything out of proportion, right along with Lincoln. My natural instincts to protect her, to make sure she didn’t have one more thing to worry about, had me saying, “Lincoln walked with me this morning.”

Her brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Our neighbor.”

Her creased brow only grew. “Why would our new neighbor be up that early?”

“He wanted to make sure Poco didn’t come back.”

Suddenly, her expression cleared, and a small smile curved her lips. “Aw. I see. He likes you.”

I bit my lip, looking away and tugging at my necklace.

Her eyes lit up. “You like him.”

I did. I really did, but it couldn’t go further than that.

Instead of answering, I got out of the car and grabbed a trolley from out front of the store, wheeling it inside. Mom followed along, and I turned my mind back to the list I’d made. How fast the samples went would give me a better idea of how many I needed to make for the following day, but I didn’t want to make two trips to the store if I could help it. I’d buy extra, and whatever supplies I didn’t use, I’d take to the café where they’d be put to good use.

As I headed for the dairy section, Mom said, “You know it’s okay, right?”

I glanced over at her, stopping to load two cases of butter into the cart. “What?”

“It’s okay to start a relationship. To find love and happiness.”

“It is. I know it is,” I told her. And it was. I wanted it for her as much as I wanted it for myself. It just couldn’t be with someone like Lincoln. That hurt more than it should after knowing him barely a day.

“But?” she pressed.

I inhaled deeply and let it out. “It’s hard to do when we’re in…you know…and can’t be honest with the people in our lives.”

“We’re not lying. A name isn’t who we are. We can still give the people we care about the truth of ourselves.” She wasn’t wrong, but she also wasn’t right.

When I didn’t respond, she pulled me to a stop, forcing me to look at her. “Hiding from the Viceroys is different than hiding ourselves. If you keep yourself closed off and don’t let anyone in,then you’ve allowed them to steal your life even though you’re still breathing. I don’t want that for you. They took so much from us already. They don’t deserve the rest.”

And then, she hugged me tight in the middle of the dairy aisle, and I hugged her back.

The last line item on my bucket list taunted me. I wanted what my parents had. I wanted to open myself up to love. But it wasn’t just the cold fury in Aaron Vitale’s eyes that held me back. It was an unknown mutated gene and the look of horror on Chad’s face when I’d told him I might die.

I might be willing to take a leap into the unknown to find love, taking a chance the tarot fates might still hand me the death card, but what if no one else was willing to take it with me? And was it even fair to ask them to?

My mind filled with Lincoln’s intense gaze and the warm hand on my chin as he demanded to know who’d hurt me. How would that look change if he knew I wasn’t just running from some external force but a genetic bomb ready to explode? Would his expression turn to horror like Chad’s had?

A piece of me wanted to spill all my worries to Mom just to have her reassure me that it would be okay. That someone would take the leap, and if they didn’t, I’d be okay. But I also didn’t want to make her sad now any more than I had when Chad had first ditched me. If I’d told her back then the reason we’d broken up, all it would have done was make her feel bad. Make her remember all the things she’d lost with Dad. And I’d promised myself I would do anything and everything to make her life easy and happy, not the other way around.

So, instead of sharing the burden like I ached to do, I stepped back from our hug and turned back to the items on my list.

I didn’t need to worry about ever having to tell Lincoln about the FFI anyway. Because the president’s son wasn’t going to whisk me in his arms and declare his undying love. Sure, there was physical attraction dancing between us, but mostly he was around because he was a heroic kind of guy. He’d seen a woman in trouble and stepped in to help.

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