Page 16 of In Another Lifetime

Rather than running, even metaphorically, Vale tipped her head to the side to study me. “Let me guess… You haven’t talked to anyone about this? About your feelings?”

“Believe it or not, talking’s not really my thing.”

Her lips quirked, and I could tell she wasn’t surprised at all. “Do you think she’d want you to be alone for the rest of your life?”

“No. You know, Brennan said that, too.” I sighed, taking a beat to redirect myself. “Vale, I don’t want to be friends.”

“Oh…” Her disappointment rang clearly through that little exhale after my clunky declaration. I couldn’t let it stand.

My head shook. “I… If you can deal with me, I’d like… I want to see if there’s something between us here. If what I’m feeling is real. If what I’m sensing from you is real. But I want to—I need to—go slow.”

Vale’s smile pushed away the shadows, letting me glimpse clear skies for the first time in years and melting more of the ice that had encased me for so long. “I can do slow. I’d like that, Day. I’d like to see where this goes, too.”

Eleven

Vale

“Okay, but now, in English,” I told my student, Lucian, over our Zoom session.

“Je ne sais pas comment le dis-le,” he complained. For the past month, I’d been helping him to improve his English skills at the behest of his parents, who’d hired me as his ESL tutor. But the preteen had no interest, though he’d be living in he US within the next few month when his father started his job in Atlanta.

“Essayer. C’est pourquoi nous sommes ici,” I chided, telling him to try, before I switched back to English. “Translate the sentence, please.”

“When is la fête? J’ai faim.”

“Lucian…” I warned, when he said half the words he was supposed to translating in his native language instead.

“This is stupid,” he replied.

“See. You can speak in English.”

The boy grimaced. “I have to leave for practice. Are we almost fini?”

“We are. On Wednesday, we’ll be talking together about weather. Make sure you review unit eighteen before then.”

“Oui, oui,” he sighed.

“Passe une bonne nuit, Lucian. Rendez-vous mercredi,” I told him, barely getting out the words, telling him to have a good night and I’d see him Wednesday, before he disconnected.

“It’s so weird hearing you speak in another language,” a deep voice said behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Kale,” I gasped, spinning in my desk chair toward where he stood leaned against the doorjamb of my office.

“That wasn’t Spanish.”

“No. French.”

“I didn’t know you even spoke Spanish before the accident, and now you speak French, too?”

I shrugged. “What can I say? Languages are my thing.”

“They never used to be. Neither was baking. You used to love art and playing the piano.”

We’d had this conversation before, yet a tingle went up my spine as he strayed far too close to the truth about me. What would he do if he found out I wasn’t the Vale he’d known since the womb?

“Well, I mean, I could stop baking if it makes you feel better—”

“No,” he cut in quickly. “You want the guys to kill me? C’mon, sis.”

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