Page 58 of Fated

“I always lie to myself though,” I mutter. “If you lie to yourself enough you forget the truth, and then the lie becomes your reality.”

Amy drops her book and it thunks to the wooden floor. “That’s deep.”

The pages of her book flap open in the yellow smudge of daylight.

I shrug. “You can’t lie in dreams though.”

I slowly raise myself on an elbow and then push myself upright. My stomach rolls a bit, still fighting a battle on a rocky sea.

“Mamamamamama,” Sean shouts, gurgling gleefully. His copper hair glimmers in the morning light and his chubby cheeks are rosy-red. He’s dressed in a blue-striped onesie and there’s a bit of dried milk flaking off his cheek. He waves the hammer at me and I smile even though the motion pinches the backs of my eyes painfully.

“Good morning,” I tell him.

“Mamamama!”

“I think he should be speaking more,” Amy says, pushing a red wooden car toward him. “At two I was quoting poetry. He’s eighteen months already. Sean, repeat after me, ‘All alone beside the streams and up the mountain-sides of dreams.’”

I press a hand to my stomach.

“Dadadada,” Sean says, waving his hammer.

And then McCormick is there, kneeling in front of me, a cup of coffee in one hand and a glass with a yellow-and-red concoction in his other.

“Morning,” he says, his voice scratchy and low. The single word rubs over me like a calloused hand stroking across my bare thigh.

My stomach flips. This time not from hangover, but from McCormick’s nearness. It’s a pleasant up-and-down sliding, the gentle fall into someone’s arms.

I lean toward him, my wrinkled cotton dress whispering over my legs. He smells like soap and fresh sea air. He’s clean-shaven and clear-eyed. It’s clear he didn’t engage in the same nighttime revelry.

A slow heat steals across me, as hot as the outside air. The last time we were this close I asked him to kiss me. I was in his arms, the cool sand was soft under my feet, and he was looking at me as if he wanted to pull me down the night-dark beach, lay me down under a palm, and taste me.

I give him a hesitant smile.

Did we kiss?

Did something more happen?

I study his features. And as I do, the fluttering of my pulse slows and the heat on my skin cools. We didn’t. We couldn’t have. Because that closeness I felt yesterday is gone. He’s holding himself stiffly and his expression is distant and guarded. There’s a wariness there, telegraphed as loudly as Sean banging his hammer on the floor.

McCormick clears his throat, glancing away from me, breaking eye contact. “Two eggs from the hens,” he says briskly, “olive oil, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Bottoms up.” He holds the glass out to me.

I stare at the concoction, my stomach revolting. “I’d rather the coffee.”

I point to the steam curling from the chipped yellow mug in his hand. The black coffee smells so inviting and lovely.

His mouth twitches and he shakes his head. He tips the glass, and the two round yellow yolks slide across the bottom, slipping through the cloudy egg white. The sauce and splash of pulpy red tomato juice congeal in little red plasma-like balls in the olive oil. Salt and pepper sit like fleas on top of the raw eggs. I’ve never seen anything so revolting in my life.

“No.”

This is a dream, isn’t it? I’ll just magic myself better.

I close my eyes and think,Cured, cured, cured.

“What are you doing?” McCormick asks, a hint of amusement curling through his voice.

“Imagining I’m better.”

“Drink this and you will be.”

---