Lost King Piper Lennox (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📖

the future, it doesn’t even matter. Like she’ll still get a life well-lived, instead of one already halfway stolen.

But I can’t talk about it at all. I wish I could. It would hurt less to be able to just say the words, matter-of-fact and medically sterilized.

“My aunt and I were taking care of her together, along with some home care, so she won’t have to go into a nursing home. But whenever Mom gets worse, the bills go up. So I moved out here, and I send money back every week. I told them it was the only well-paying work I could find.”

My chest aches. What I’m about to confess has festered inside me worse than any other lie I’ve ever told. And I think that’s why it has to come out.

“I did get offered some decent work in Jersey, though. But I didn’t take it. And I didn’t tell them about it.”

My body draws back from him, arms folding in like I can hold myself together. He pulls me back, no hesitation.

“You wanted to leave,” he whispers.

“Yes.”

I feel the tears on my face, cold lines down to my chin, but don’t actually feel like I’m crying. Just falling apart, in a space where it’s safe to do that.

I can’t believe it’s with him.

I can’t believe this is the same boy who humiliated me, who destroyed the meager but decent life I had, and my mother’s, with one selfish and sick action.

“Tell me that you’re smarter than that. Tell me you aren’t actually doing that to yourself again.”

Am I smarter than this? Who in their right mind would reenter the lion’s den, after the beast took so much from them?

Who would dare look at it and decide it’s changed?

But when he lifts my chin and cleans off my tears with his lips, kissing every ache in my heart until they’re numb, I don’t regret opening that gate.

Theo isn’t a lion, anymore.

And even if he were...I’m no longer a naïve little lamb, stumbling back into the slaughter.

“Look at me.” His eyes sweep across my face. “It’s okay. You’re still helping them, yeah? You just...do it from afar now.”

“Yeah,” I sob, “so I don’t have to look at her everyday. How fucking selfish is that?”

“I don’t think it’s selfish. I think you’re doing what you have to, for your own mental health.”

I shake my head. That’s a nice thought and all—but the fact remains that I left my mother, right when she needed me most, because I wasn’t strong enough.

I abandoned her. Just like my dad.

“I’m an awful person, Theo.” I stare at his chest while he kisses my forehead.

I touch the heart I almost destroyed.

“You’re not.” His voice, so sure and steady, reverberates in my head when I put my ear against his chest. “I know you, Ruby. You’re good. And you’re—”

Quickly, I lift my head and kiss him. I won’t let him finish that lie.

I’m not good. I’m not honest.

You used to be, though.

And that makes whatever I am now even worse.

23

“Okay, so then it’s a left at the base of the mountain, not a right.”

I write “left” on the back of my hand, then toss the marker aside to finish packing while Wes and Clara bicker in my speakerphone. “Got it.”

“Tell him it’s the hard left,” she urges Wes, “not the weird fork-in-the-road thing.”

“He knows what ‘left’ means, Clare. He’ll see it.”

“You didn’t. We almost got stuck in that creek.” The line swishes around, getting passed between hands; she calls, “The hard left, Theo. There are two left roads, don’t take—”

“The weird fork-in-the-road thing,” I finish, laughing. I cram my stack of new sweaters in the bag, add my toiletries and phone charger, then zip it shut. “Got it. I’m leaving now.”

They cheer and shout that they’ll see me soon. I hang up, then dial Ruby’s cell.

She sounds breathless when she answers. “Hey.”

“Hey. You all right?”

“Yeah.” There’s a long sigh, and I can tell she isn’t. “Um...oh, are you leaving now?”

“Yeah, just finished packing. Where are you?” We decided to postpone our goodbye for the weekend as long as possible. I’m supposed to meet her at her last house of the day on my way out of town.

She gives me the address, still sounding strange. I decide not to push it...yet. Getting info out of Ruby, I’ve noticed, is way easier in person.

She meets me on the curb in front of a sprawling, brand-new house in Westhampton. Right away, I know I wasn’t imagining that weird tone during our call. She looks upset.

I kiss her when she climbs into the passenger side. “Talk.”

With another sigh, she plops back against her seat. “My aunt is taking my mom on a cruise.”

“Uh...” I watch her angle the vents onto her face, basking in the heat. “That’s...horrible?”

She gives me a look, then rolls her eyes at herself. “No, no, the cruise is good. My aunt got it for free—she used to work there and built up, like, a thousand favors—and we both think the warm weather and relaxing will be so good for my mom. It’s just...she booked it because I told her I was going to be working this weekend.” Her hand sweeps to the house. “And instead, we’re doing our Thursday and Friday work today, because two clients cancelled.”

“Ah,” I nod. “So the problem is that, now that you can go home, nobody will even be there.”

“Exactly.” She scrubs her cheeks, probably out of equal parts frustration and coldness. “It’s fine, I mean…my car’s in the shop until Friday, for one thing, so it’s not like I’d have a way home. And I have some