Page 104 of Cryptic Curse

I used to try harder, but none of it mattered.She still sighs when I walk into a room, like I’ve brought too much air with me.Like I’m something she has to tolerate instead of someone she gets to love.

Dad’s not much better.He’s always somewhere else—on a phone call, on a plane, on another continent.

Ted’s the only one who sees me.He’s my dad’s assistant, technically, but I think of him as more like an uncle.My dad hates the earring, says it’s “unprofessional.”When I told Ted, he just laughed and said, “Stars are professional in space, aren’t they?”

Ted remembers stuff.Like how I hate mushrooms but love strawberries.Like how I draw spaceships in the margins of my homework when I’m bored.Like how sometimes I don’t want to talk, just sit and be around someone who won’t make me feel weird for being quiet.He also gets me.He doesn’t just say “life isn’t fair” when I go on about something that I think is wrong.

He doesn’t tell me to toughen up when I get upset.He doesn’t roll his eyes or say, “You’re too sensitive.”He just listens.And when I told him once that I didn’t think my mom liked me very much, he didn’t try to argue or fix it.He just said, “That’s not your fault.”

And I believed him.

Some days I wish he were my dad.Or maybe just that he lived down the hall and not in downtown Summer Creek.

Because when Ted’s around, I don’t feel like an interruption.

I feel like a kid who matters.

* * *

Present Day…

I haven’t been able to get Daniela out of my head.

I went outside today, worked the land with my hands.It’s what I do when my mind is racing.

Because besides Daniela…

There’s the issue of the missing body.

Falcon is meeting me later to discuss it more fully.We’re having dinner at his place.Savannah is going into Austin to see her friend Gert.She’ll be gone a few days.

I met Gertrude Levinson once.At the time, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.Dark hair and eyes, great body.I guess I have a type.Still, it never occurred to me to approach her.

She’s Savannah’s friend, after all.

But enter Daniela Agudelo, andwham.

Younger than Gert and even more beautiful, and I can’t get her the hell out of my mind.

And I have to, because I need to focus.

Something’s going down, with that body being gone and all.

With my father being hospitalized and aphasic.

And Eagle…

I swear to God I believe him.He didn’t have anything to do with this, and he never told a soul about that night.

Despite everything else he’s put me through in the last eight years, I fucking believe him.

Plus, he’s my brother.

I love the shithead.

I drive to Falcon’s, but instead of inviting me inside, Fal is waiting beside his truck.

“What gives?”I ask.

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