Page 48 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

Blood whooshes past my eardrums. Pounding, pounding, pounding from my rapidly beating broken heart.

I can’t stay here another second. Not in this room with all the secrets swirling around.

I whirl on my heels and bolt for the door.

I mumble something to Sydney, something like I need space , but I’m not even sure how much I say out loud.

She doesn’t follow me. She lets me go.

Even with her secret mixed in with the rest, I find myself hoping she isn’t letting me go forever.

I get to the end of the row of doors, about to turn the corner into the courtyard near our room, when I hear my name.

I don’t stop walking. Moira doesn’t stop following.

The crunch of my boots on the cobblestone, grinding the bits of gravel into the stone, is echoed seconds later by the clack of her sandals following.

“Cadence, wait.” Final and firm. I shouldn’t turn, but I do.

She’s standing alone at the entrance to the courtyard.

Her hands hang loose at her sides; her hair catches the breeze.

Her eyes are lighter than mine, her freckles, too.

She is my mother, there’s no denying it, not even if I have this round nose and soft chin and Cupid’s-bow lips that I can’t see in her.

“His name was on the deed. He wasn’t some deadbeat, was he?” She let me believe he was. That searching for him was futile, not worth it.

“Depends on your definition,” she says. “He made a choice, and that choice meant he didn’t matter to your story.” She doesn’t step closer, but I do. Not as a concession, more as a threat.

“What gives you the right to decide that, Mom?” I know she likes the name, but it’s a flaming arrow on my tongue.

“That,” she says, nodding her head toward me. “ Mom . That’s what gave me the right back then.”

“When I was a kid and I asked you about him? When I was a teenager? Left for college? What gave you the right then when I was a full-grown adult?”

“I knew how he would react to you finding him. He didn’t want a relationship—with either of us.

” This, at least, looks painful for her to admit.

“I wasn’t going to give you his name for you to find him and have him”—her voice cracks—“turn you away. I couldn’t do that to you.

” She clenches her jaw, blinking. Tears hover at the edges of her lower lids.

“I convinced him to let me keep Kismet by promising I wouldn’t sue him for child support. ”

A thought burrows its way up from the depths of my subconscious, not tapping, not whispering, just appearing like a wild creature on the forest floor.

It’s fucked-up, but she really did do this for me.

Kismet.

Was mine. Always.

Full of secret hideouts, surrounded by trees that became shelter, animals who became friends. For all the ways she used it for herself, she let me have it, too.

“You can’t sell the house, Mom.”

“You left the house.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love it.” Our eyes lock, and she knows, even though I can’t bring myself to say it.

I don’t just mean the house.

“It’s the only way I can see to get everything Rick and I need,” she says. “Everything is different now with the business, with the world. I can’t make this work anymore. What I do, the way I do it, it’s ending, and I can’t stop it.”

“You refuse to adapt. That’s what would get you what you need.” Her jaw is set, just like her mind. Just like her plan. “Lola has relied on that house, that job, since her mother bailed on her. You can’t do that to her—at least not without telling her.”

“She’ll understand. You know she has her own fool’s journey to go on when she’s ready.”

“ You cryptically claimed she’d know when the time was right to go searching for Lou. That doesn’t mean you get to decide that for her—”

“I know you don’t see it, but this way everyone gets what they need.”

I blink. Even as she’s grappling with her plan going awry, she can’t just say it. She can’t admit it’s wrong that she’s manipulated us. She pulled me back here from thousands of miles away, and she engineered a love story for me to walk right into.

I let it happen because I wanted it.

Even with the little voice whispering that it was all because of her .

“It’s not Sydney’s fault she’s your soulmate,” Moira says, as if reading my thoughts from right inside my head. My eyes snap to hers.

Soulmate.

I don’t know if she’s saying that because of Sydney’s reading or because she knows about our initial meeting at Kismet. Right now, it doesn’t matter.

“I don’t believe in that shit,” I bite back.

Liar, liar.

“Even so,” she replies. “I see how you two look at each other.”

“We barely know each other,” I say, even though I feel the flimsiness of the argument as it leaves my lips. “We can’t just change our whole lives to be together because of a connection we felt for a few days. That’s absurd.”

“No, you can’t admit that it’s what you want because you think that means you’ll be admitting I was right.”

A guttural growl rises in my throat. “Oh my God, you always have to make everything about you! Some things are not about you, Mom.” I snap my heated gaze to hers.

I watch the flames light in the dark. She opens her lips to protest, her knee-jerk go-to, but then she doesn’t do it.

She blinks, then she nods, a quiver rippling her lips.

“You’re right,” she says, her voice shaky.

“What?” I can’t be hearing that right.

Two words I never thought I’d hear her say. It’s everything and not enough at the same time. It’s a start, but I don’t know if I want to stick around to let her finish.

“I shouldn’t have come here.” I shouldn’t have thought I could beat her at her own game.

“But you did. You chose to come here, you chose to stay, and it doesn’t matter why. What matters is what you do now.” Tears well in my eyes. “What do you want, Cadence?” She asks it as if I were a querent and her cards were in hand, shuffled and ready for me to cut.

“What the fuck does it matter what I want?”

“Everything.” She is steady. Sure. The perfect mirror for the Universe. “What you want is what you take action on.”

What do I want?

To not be this lonely.

But I can’t tell her that without conceding that getting as far away as I could gave me peace, but not happiness. It was an escape from her manipulation, her story of my life, but it didn’t give me belonging—that feeling that you matter to someone, that you’re known.

Sydney gave me that. This week beside her gave me a glimpse of it, at least. Made me aware of all I was missing and all I could have if I let myself. Despite how angry and hurt I am, I can’t deny that—for me—everything I’ve felt has been real.

Even the part about being glad I came back.

I’m scared of how much I want this story to keep going, despite the catalyst that started it. But I don’t think I can accept that I want it. That if I lose it, I’ll know I chose that, too.

I shake my head. I don’t answer her question out loud, I don’t say another word. I have to get space. I have to get far enough away from her.

I have to think this through.

Feel it.

What do you want, Cadence?

I don’t know the answer to that yet.