Today Tomorrow and Always (Phenomenal Fate 3)

“When you were human, did you want to have children?”

“Yeah.” His lips tipped up, the sound of laughing babies and barking dogs filling his head. “Hell yeah. A whole brood. I wanted the messy house and the long road trips where everyone complains. Little league games, trips to the emergency room, last-minute barbeques.”

Mary shifted in her seat. “Is it human to want the bad things?”

“I don’t know.” He flipped back through a file of memories and voices from the past. “No. I don’t think so. Everyone believes they’ll be better at life than their parents when they get older, but hard as they try, it’s a pattern and the pattern is going to get you. The bad things are just as unavoidable, no matter how much knowledge you consume. I loved that guaranteed repetition, though. I think I appreciated it even more later on because my father broke it. He deviated. And I wanted to keep going along the same normal route I’d been promised. I was going to reestablish the pattern.”

“When?”

“When?” He shrugged a shoulder and laughed. “When someone settled for my ass, I guess.”

Damn, did he really say that out loud?

Mary frowned. “What does that mean? Settled.”

Wishing he’d kept his mouth shut, Tucker put the Impala in drive and left Main Street in the rearview, turning them toward the outer edge of town. “Settled?” He said it casually, like it wasn’t something that had constantly occurred to him during his human and vampire lives. “It’s kind of like, when all the other options have run out, a last resort starts looking like a decent one. Like when the diner is out of pancakes, so you opt for an omelet, even though you know the diner makes them with rubbery brown edges.”

For a moment, her eyes locked right in with his, holding so long he started wondering if she could see him after all. “But you’re not talking about eggs, you’re talking about yourself.”

Anxiousness crawled up the back of his neck like a prickly beetle. He was trying not to overthink the fact that he’d be seeing his father soon or he would have changed the subject. Instead, the ugliest bullshit that had been plaguing him became the only form of distraction available. No way around. No way to laugh it off. “When you have your sight, Mary, the world will teach you to see the difference between what’s beautiful and what’s not. It’s unavoidable, even for someone as pure hearted as you.”

Her frown deepened. “It seems like this your way of telling me you’re not one of the beautiful things, Tucker. You’ve tried to tell me before, too, and—”

“What I’m trying to say is that you are beautiful, inside and out, and when you’re able to see, the whole world is going to be new. When you have choices in front of you, your eyes will pick based on what appeals most. I want that for you.”

“Are you assuming I’ll become shallow?” Her radiance broke into tiny specks and dimmed. “Once I can see, I’ll forsake inner beauty for things that are pleasing to the eye?”

“You will never be shallow, honey.”

“Then I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“You wouldn’t have chosen me if you could see,” Tucker said in a strangled rasp. “And part of me is glad I won’t be there when you can.”

He could feel the physical blow his words delivered to her.

Could feel it across the car.

Even though it was him that caused the hurt, his instinct to protect Mary from pain rose swiftly, prepared to punish, his fangs protracting from his gums, spearing into his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, dangerously close to ripping off the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like any of this is your fault. It’s not. I’m just being realistic. Some things are the same in the human world as they are in ours.”

“And in the human world, you weren’t wanted. Or sought after. So it must be the same now.” She crossed her arms over her middle. “You do want the bad parts of a pattern, don’t you? Maybe you only want the bad parts.”

A boulder took up residence in his stomach. “Come again?”

“You said you wanted road trips where everyone complains and a dirty house. You look forward to those things, while others focus on the good.”

“I see the good, too,” he muttered, not sure he liked where this was headed. “I wanted it as a human and I want it now.” I want you. I need you more than anything.

“Do you do anything to pursue it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen what happens when the good gets taken away, Mary. My father’s mind deteriorated over it. He became obsessed with some insane lie because the truth hurt too much. She just didn’t want us.” He cursed at the telling admission, dragging a hand down his face. “Him. I meant, she didn’t want him.”