Page 49 of The Sun and the Moon

Sydney

As desperate as I was to follow Cadence, I wanted to respect her whispered, wounded request. I don’t want to be a person who pushes against her boundaries.

I don’t want to force her to hear me out until she’s ready—if she ever is.

I didn’t tell her about the reading because I didn’t want her to push me away, and that was selfish.

But the reading wasn’t why I fell for her.

“Say something, Birdie,” Dad says. He’s still sitting at the foot of the bed.

I’m still trying to process what he said, how it could be true.

How could he keep so much from me when it was supposed to be us against the world ?

How had I never seen any of the signs? But I guess I wasn’t looking for proof my dad wasn’t perfect—I was just looking for a way I could be perfect enough for the both of us.

“Any other lies you wanna get off your chest?” I snipe. “Am I adopted? Are you actually my dad or a doppelg?nger switched out by fairies?”

“I think I’m clean out for the day,” he replies with none of his usual cheeriness. “The last couple of decades, actually.”

“Do you still gamble?”

“Mostly…no. Once, a few months ago, which is why I owe Greg. But I have bad credit card debt—” He cuts himself off, looking freshly embarrassed. “And I don’t have a membership at the club anymore because of it.”

“Good riddance. I hated the club.” He balks and so I double down. “It’s classist, just like the sport of golf. Historically and even presently, racism and misogyny are the name of the game.” His eyes round. As if he’s never thought of it in that way and doesn’t really want to now.

“I miss the sauna,” he says with a sigh.

I snort and drop down to sit beside him on the bed.

I should be angrier than I am. I should be more hurt.

But overwhelmingly what I feel is relief.

Like I can finally drop every ball in the air, let them all bounce out of reach, let them break if they’re frail.

Being the perfect pilot daughter for my perfect pilot dad was a fallacy in more ways than one.

Dad isn’t perfect.

I don’t even know if I want to be a pilot.

“I shouldn’t have kept the gambling from you. I just kept thinking, I’ll get this under control. I’m just using it to cope ,” he says. His eyes trail up and over to the cards on the table. “Magic helped. It mostly curbed the feelings—”

“Did you ever think to just, I don’t know, confront your feelings?” I interrupt.

“Did you?” He lifts his brow.

“Fair,” I grunt.

He continues. “Then came Moira. And she got it—me. She saw the flaws and didn’t try to change them. She worked with them, and it got a lot easier to believe there was another side to this coin. More than just surviving.”

It’s silly how much I relate to that feeling. Survival isn’t living. Going through the motions isn’t happiness.

“You should have told me about the wedding.” This is the part that stings the most, stupidly. The fresh lie he chose without thinking twice.

“I should have,” he says. “But I hope you don’t let all of this sour whatever has started between you and Cadence.”

“I don’t know if that’s up to me, Dad. I lied to her—”

“Omitted a detail—”

“There’s less nuance in honesty than you and Moira seem to think there is,” I scold him, and I am pleased he appears mostly repentant.

“I was happy to let her forget about that reading, to keep the facts of it a secret, because her knowing the truth about it might change her actions. It’s like in quantum mechanics. Reality doesn’t exist unless observed.”

“But observing can alter reality,” he adds. “You saw the cards, and you decided you wanted to see what would happen if you followed the suggestion.”

I swallow the lump forming in my throat. I can see how the meaning in the reading has been playing out between us ever since we met. The clarity that has come from every interaction, for me and for her. That give-and-take that only happens with an equal connection.

The Two of Cups. That cute gay card wasn’t kidding.

Moira walks back through the door, which has been hanging open this whole time. Cadence isn’t with her.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” Moira says, but she is going to anyway. “The invites will be delivered to the guests soon.” She withers, her face breaking down. The mastermind is not happy with the way the chess game is playing out.

I don’t feel bad for her, but Dad rushes to her side, taking her hands between his. Genuine affection and concern pour from his eyes.

The two of them may be a perfect pair of liars, but what they feel for each other is real.

“I don’t know where she’s gone. I don’t know if she’s coming back,” Moira moans. “I really thought I could give her something she needed and maybe that would fix things between us.”

She may not come back . The reality slams into me. I need to go after her. I should. But I am afraid if I do before she’s ready, I’ll end up pushing her away even further. So I decide to focus on getting more information out of the parents.

“You gotta level with me, Moira.” I stand now, too, stepping nearer, wishing I had a height advantage.

She’s at least shorter than her daughter, though that doesn’t make the woman less intimidating.

That’s something they have in common. “That original soulmate prediction, the one you gave her here when she was a teenager…Did you know we met that day at Kismet?”

“I saw you two leaving,” she says. “I didn’t know you were you, since I only saw the back of your head. But that night at the restaurant I put two and two together.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” I balk, my temper flaring up. At this point, the idea that she let us scheme and plot with such abandon shouldn’t surprise me, but it can still piss me off.

“We’ve established I like a game,” she says with a fluid shrug. “And Cadence hadn’t played in years. It was refreshing to see her…trying. Even if she was trying to take me down.”

“We were trying to protect Dad,” I say. He smiles broadly, and it brightens his every feature. “Which was clearly not needed.” The smile ghosts.

Moira grins, catlike again. She really doesn’t stay down for long, does she?

“Questioning is a good instinct.” She repeats her statement from that first dinner that caused me to spiral over so many things that needed questioning in my life.

And asking questions—the right ones, anyway—leads to destiny.

Everything that is meant for you will find you.

I want Cadence to be my soulmate because of how she makes me feel. The idea that she might be has fueled my actions with her, even if I got the idea to take those actions because of a prediction—a scheme I wasn’t even in on. I shift my eyes to hers.

“I have to find her.”

She smiles as if she knew I was going to say that.

I bolt for the door, yanking my phone out of my pocket to call her.

“Will we see you at the wedding?” Dad asks. I whip around to see their nervous, expectant faces.

“I don’t know yet,” I say. “But not without her.” I lift my phone, using my face to open it. And then I remember one more thing. “Chicken!”

“We were going to ask you to bring him tonight,” Dad says, throwing a puppy-dog face at me. “He’s the ring bearer.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad, I didn’t even know it was a wedding, and now the dog is in it?” I exclaim.

“We hoped you and Cadence would be in it, too,” he tries. I hold up my hands in a stop motion. “Moira can just get a key to the room from Sven,” Dad edits.

“You can’t just do that—”

“Oh, I definitely can.”

“Un-be-lievable.” I emphasize the syllables, but I don’t wait around for her to dismiss my displeasure. “I’ll bring him to you.”

As I walk, I find her name, Ranger Girl , in my phone and tap the little icon.

I don’t know if she’ll pick up, if my calling her will push her away, if it’s too much too soon.

When the call goes to her voicemail, I hang up.

This is not something I want to say in a voicemail.

Hell, saying it over the phone is weird enough as it is.

I don’t know where to even begin looking for her, but I need to go back to our room for Chicken anyway, so I’ll check there.

I run down the corridor and through the courtyard to our room, swiping my key in the door.

Chicken starts to bark at the sound, but as soon as he sees it’s me, he’s up, shaking out his tail.

My eyes land on a black rectangle nestled in the bed linens.

She wasn’t answering her phone because she doesn’t have it.

I grab the phone and the dog.

I breathe, a wish in my mind. I don’t know who I’m asking, but I hope they listen.

Please let us find each other.