Today Tomorrow and Always (Phenomenal Fate 3)

“How to feel normal.”

“Yeah,” she breathed, resting her chin on her raised knees. “Exactly.”

“I figured there was no sense in trying to be normal. Not with the alien guy as my father. I kind of leaned hard the other way, wanting to make sure they all knew I didn’t care. Dressed flashy. Played my music loud. Starting smoking my sophomore year of high school.” There was the sound of metal clinking layered over the sound of his quiet laugh. “These stupid chains.”

“I like the chains.” When he didn’t respond to that, she raised her head. “Why did this all start when you were sixteen? Did something happen?”

“My mother left. Right out of the blue. We woke up one morning and she was just…gone. Her side of the bed had been slept in, all of her things were still there. We filed a missing person’s report and there was no trail. Nothing to go on.” A few beats passed. “My father sat me down about a week later and told me he’d seen something the night she left. Bright lights in the sky. A feeling of being…subdued, but alert. He’d chalked it up to a dream, but he was starting to believe it had been real. That my mother was abducted. By aliens.”

A hand crept to Mary’s rapidly bearing heart and rubbed. “So all of his efforts were to find out what happened to your mother? To bring her back?”

“Don’t tell me you think it’s romantic, Mary.”

“How can you not think it’s romantic, Tucker?” She swallowed. “That’s not to say it wasn’t unfair to you, the way he handled everything. I’m sorry for that.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, honey,” he muttered.

“I like honey much better than kid, incidentally.”

“It’s a lot less helpful. In terms of reminding me…where we’re headed.”

She blew out a breath and whispered, “As if a reminder is necessary.”

They fell into a companionable silence, though she could hear faint movements on the other side of the door. She picked up the bottle of shampoo and lathered her wet hair, scrubbing her scalp with her fingernails, then leaning back to rinse away the suds. She did the same with the conditioner, before picking up the rose-scented soap and rubbing it between her hands.

Tucker said she had nothing to feel sorry for, but she couldn’t help the hollow sort of sensation in her middle. “Tucker?”

“Huh?”

“I know what it’s like to have your father out there, thinking badly about you. It’s not as easy as you’re making it out to be.”

Seconds ticked by. “No. I guess it’s not. But suspected murder is a good reason to think badly about somebody. Blindness sure as shit isn’t.”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, the gratitude was so heavy in her breast.

No one had ever said something like that to her. In her defense.

In defense of her capabilities as a blind woman.

That simple, profanity-laced statement was a layer of armor she never knew was missing.

“No, i-it’s not,” she said in a rush after a too-long pause. “Sometimes I wonder if the slayers and vampires would even refer to me as Mary the Mad…if I could see. I’m a little unusual, but I’m no crazier than anyone else, am I?”

“You’re not crazy at all, Mary. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry they call you that. That I ever referred to you by that name, even if it was just in my head. Before we met.” He paused. “If anything, your lack of sight seems to make you more…thoughtful. More present in your head. Because you can’t rely on your eyes to make judgments for you.”

Mary sank down into the bath and let a tear leak silently into the water.

In that moment, she truly understood Tucker yearning to be human. To feel human. In the underworld, power was the currency. But humans just wanted to be accepted. Acknowledged. And she couldn’t think of a single thing better than this feeling. Human gratitude. Connection with the man on the other side of the door. What was power or immortality compared to that?

Was there a way to give him what he’d given to her? Maybe. Just maybe.

“I was thinking, you know, if your father is the type to believe in aliens, he might not find it so odd if his son showed up, just happening to be a vampire. And on top of that, and this is terrible, but…” She chewed on her lip. “No one would believe him if he couldn’t keep the secret.”

“You think I should go see him?” Mary sensed his disbelief through the door. “No way. Not happening.”

“Don’t you think he would love to see you? Don’t you think it would mean so much to him if you explained that you didn’t leave him too?”

“Let’s say he didn’t suspect me of murder. We still didn’t end on good terms. I…he embarrassed me.” Tucker’s voice dropped and she let her energy reach out, could feel the shame and frustration radiating from him. “The night everything happened…”