Page 87 of The Temptation of Truth

“Good.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

“I saw your bags.” I nod toward the bed. “You did some damage.”

She winces and lets out a forced laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”

Another painfully awkward pause follows. I try to think of anything else to talk about—anything safe and easy—but I come up short. Aurora and I don’t really do small talk. We haven’t stuck to safe, easy topics, and this stilted conversation actually hurts. I hate it. There’s no sign of the warmth or playfulness that’s colored all our other interactions. There’s no familiarity. That strong connection I feel with her, it’s flickering—fading in and out—and I feel anxious. Panicky. As if I don’t do something soon, it will disappear, and I’ll question if it was ever real at all.

I grab my ring and spin it around on my finger. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. The tension mounts until I can’t take it anymore, and then I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

“I found my birth mom.”

When her eyes widen, and her lips curl into a surprised smile, I’m immediately relieved. I’ve been itching to talk about this with someone, but I realize now that it wasn’t just anyone I wanted to share it with. It was her. With just a few words, just one intimate secret, we’reusagain, and I feel like I can finally breathe.

“Really? How? Where? How do you feel?”

“Really. I hired a law firm and had them hire a private investigator. She’s in Georgia. And to be honest, I don’t know how I feel yet.”

She nods, her smile softening. “I understand that. It’s a lot to process. Do you think you’ll meet her?”

“I haven’t decided. What if she doesn’t want to know me?”

“Then she’s a fool.”

The conviction in her voice makes my heart ache, and I huff a small laugh.

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t make it hurt less,” I confess. “She gave me up and made no attempt to find me. It’s not unreasonable to think she wouldn’t want me just showing up on her doorstep.”

“Are you sure?”

Aurora’s head is tilted to the side, her question posed so plainly that it takes me a minute to understand it.

“Am I sure what?”

“That your birth mom didn’t try to find you. Are you sure?”

I think about it for a moment, blinking at the open, interested, completely unjudgmental expression on her beautiful face. And then I shake my head.

“No, I guess not. I just, I don’t know, I assumed since no one came knocking on my door in the last thirty years that they haven’t looked.”

She smiles again, this one more playful. Moreher, and it makes my throat tight.

“You’ve tried on a lot of lives, Susan Ainsley Mabel Rossi. I don’t know that it would be easy to find you if someone didn’t know where to look.”

“You said you could find me in any crowd.”

I hadn’t realized how strongly I’d been clinging to those words, to her meaning behind them, until they escape my lipsand float between us. In the seconds following, I hold my breath. I wait for her to flee. To apologize. I watch as shock and embarrassment pass over her face, and then it’s awash in something like sadness.

“I could”—her voice is a whisper, and I lean closer—“but that’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I don’t do it on purpose. I justknow.”

It’s like she’s reached right into my chest, grabbed onto my heart, and squeezed. It brings tears to my eyes, but I don’t look away from her. I can’t. I see everything I’m feeling in her expression. Every ounce of longing and confusion. The frustration of being so inexplicably drawn to someone you can’t have.