Page 72 of Keeping Kasey
The silence between Kasey and me is heavy, and I appreciate that she doesn’t bother with any words of comfort. They’d be wasted anyway.
“Looking back,” I continue, “I think my dad’s attempt at giving Elise a normal life was his way of atoning for what he did to our mom.”
“Seems like things turned out just fine for her,” Kasey notes, and the taunting edge returns to her smile. For once, I’m glad to see it there.
“Yet to be determined,” I grumble.
Kasey’s snort of laughter fills my chest with a feeling I can’t put words to, but I want more of it.
“What about you?” I ask.
She cocks her head to one side.
“I’ve never heard you talk about your family.”
“First, a romantic dinner, and now you want to meet my family? This is moving awfully fast.”
“Come on, beautiful. You know everything about my family. The least you can do is give me an overview of yours.”
Kasey’s cheeks redden, and her smile falls.
She sets the sliver of taco she hasn’t eaten down on the foil wrap and looks around, like maybe something will cut into our conversation so she won’t have to answer. But nothing does, and after several seconds, she sighs.
“I don’t talk about my family because I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a family.”
Kasey picks at a jagged divot in the picnic table, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her fidget. It’s probably a sign that I should backtrack, but I don’t.
Iwanther vulnerability.
I get her fire, her fight, her snark, and even her body—but I want this, too.
“I’m an only child,” she finally says.
“Shocker,” I mutter, and her small smile makes my chest fill with that same euphoric feeling.
“My mom had a normal job at a law firm, but my dad was a cyber intelligence specialist for a government program that doesn’t technically ‘exist,’” she says, using air quotations for the last word. “He loved what he did, and he loved watching me fall in love with it, too. He died when I was fifteen.”
Just two years older than I was when my mother was killed.
It’s something I wish we didn’t have in common.
“Whether he learned something he shouldn’t have or did something he shouldn’t, I still have no idea. All I know for sure is that his death wasn’t an accident. Mom got paranoid after that. She took every electronic device out of the house and banned me from doing any hacking whatsoever. Now that I’m older, I can understand why she did it, but I was just a teenager. All I knew was that my dad was dead, and my mom was smothering me.”
Kasey takes a sip of her drink, and when nothing comes through the straw, I slide my drink toward her. She nods in thanks before continuing.
“At that point, hacking wasn’t just a hobby to me—itwasme. So, I hid it from my mom, but she found me out a year later. I had already forged the documentation and stashed enough money to live on my own, so I threatened to leave if she didn’t let me keep doing it.”
Kasey swallows and looks past me, people-watching to avoid meeting my eye.
“She gave me her suitcase and told me to go. Said that she’d rather mourn me now than watch me follow in my dad’s footsteps.” She smiles, but it doesn’t touch her eyes. “So, I did. At sixteen, I got an apartment, started working as a contractor, adopted Kane, and I’ve been just fine on my own.”
Just fine.
I wonder if she actually believes that.
“Do you still talk to her?”
