Illusion Lake by Sheryl Wright

Author:Sheryl Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2021-06-06T22:46:51+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Curling up on the couch hadn’t been the smartest idea, but Kiva felt too emotionally drained to climb the stairs and too jacked up on caffeine to sleep soundly. She had closed her eyes with Elliott’s innermost thoughts on her mind. Her handwriting was atrocious, and it had taken a while to find the pattern and contend with her sentence fragments. At first she’d even questioned the woman’s command of the language. After reading the second book she began to understand. Elliott rushed her thoughts. Her writing never able to keep pace with her mind, she’d resorted to short forms or indecipherable scribbles to get down the gist. When something was important, legally or for future reference, she printed it out in a careful almost machine-like precision. When she was angry or upset, her words were recorded in a deep scratching scrawl.

After finishing the last journal, Kiva could pick out the moments when Elliott was hopeful by the wistful flourish of her penmanship. It was easy to imagine a shrink would have a heyday with it, but she felt something else; she felt comforted. Everything she shared was revealing, open, and without judgment. She talked about their first meeting without blaming their opening animosity on Kiva. She took responsibility for the friction between them, blaming it on her exhaustion and worry.

The last six months had been hard on her, she admitted in the journal. Kiva thought that was an understatement. She also wished she could have brought her elderly grandmother with her to New Mexico and hated herself for not having the money to fly her down to see her little brother’s home and the work which had kept him occupied for the last fifty years. She called Kiva feisty, and she hadn’t expected that, nor had she expected her to accept the breakfast invitation. She called herself a nerd for going on and on about all the projects in the hangar and boring a beautiful woman to death. And she said something else that shocked Kiva:

“She’s brilliant, beautiful, articulate, and way outta my league. Even if she was staying, why would she consider me? And knowing she’s going home in a few months just makes her more dangerous. I couldn’t do casual with a woman like that. Oh, I know I’d cave if she showed even the slightest interest but good God, the heartbreak would kill me. Why is it I meet her like this and now? It’s hard enough to imagine her taking an interest in me but here? Not a chance. And I don’t think I can go back there, back to T.O. Maybe in time, but now? What would I do and what would I be to her? The thought. It hurts. I hurt. And nothing’s happened. I know better. Still, it hurts to breathe when she’s near me and it’s impossible to think clearly. Yes, she’s my Kryptonite.”

Kiva sat up, only then realizing her arms were wrapped around the journal and she was holding it tight to her chest.

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