Return (Awakened Fate Book 3) by Skye Malone Page B

against the side of my bed, and my cell phone and wallet were on the nightstand nearby.
    I glanced to the window and the closed curtains. Baylie could be home. The lights at her house had been off when we drove up, and most of the curtains had been closed, but she still could be. After all, our stay at the Delaneys was supposed to have ended over a week ago.
    But then, she’d still been in Santa Lucina when I called the day before Zeke and I left.
    I swallowed. Maybe she was here. Or maybe Peter and Diane had shipped it or something.
    Mom cleared her throat behind me and I jumped.
    “Would you like help?” she asked.
    I stared, confused. That weird, worried look was on her face again. “Help?”
    “Putting your stuff away,” she elaborated.
    My expression didn’t change. “That’s alright.”
    She hesitated, seeming as though she still wanted to try. She gave me a jerky nod and didn’t leave.
    The silence stretched.
    “So I wondered what you might like for dinner?” Mom asked. “I thought maybe we could see if anywhere in town carries sushi.”
    I made myself blink. Sushi? She–
    “If you’d like,” Mom pressed on hastily. “I just… I want you to feel… what I mean is, I heard that’s similar to what they eat, and if you need to have food like they do, then we can find it.”
    I shook my head. “Whatever you make is fine for both of us,” I managed. I paused. “Mom, what is this?”
    “Nothing,” she replied, a touch of familiar defensiveness coming into her voice. “You’re my daughter. I’m not going to starve you.”
    I looked away.
    “I’m sorry,” she said.
    My eyebrows rose as I turned back in surprise at the words.
    “I’ll make barbecue chicken,” she continued. “Your favorite. Is that good?”
    “Y-yeah. Thanks.”
    Giving me a tense smile, she moved to leave and then hesitated, looking back. “I want you to know,” she said tightly, “we’re happy you came home. I know things are… are tense sometimes. But we’re really just…”
    Mom’s brow furrowed and, as impossible as it seemed, she actually looked like she was trying not to cry.
    Swallowing hard, she forced her expression to clear. “We always want what’s best for you, Chloe. That’s all. And so if there’s anything you need in order for you to be okay here, you just let me know. Anything in the world, understand?”
    I stared and succeeded in moving my head in something like a nod.
    Mom echoed the motion. Without another word, she left the room.
    It took me a moment to drag my gaze from the doorway, and a moment more before my thoughts ordered themselves enough to process what had just happened.
    My mother… wanted to make things okay for me.
    Okay for me.
    A breath escaped me, the sound loud in the quiet.
    My mother wanted to make things okay for me here.
    I didn’t know what to do. I’d thought coming home would be normal. I’d known what ‘normal’ meant – fights, months of being grounded, and my parents possibly even trying to move us out of town simply because I’d run off to California with Baylie – but after the past few weeks, I’d been willing to risk it.
    But this…
    This was a parallel dimension.
    This was crazier than what I’d left. This was Mom and Dad acting in a way I’d never seen in my life.
    Acting like they’d been scared I wouldn’t come back.
    I trembled at the memory of Zeke’s words. I didn’t know what I’d planned. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d just been trying to survive.
    And now I’d returned to something as strange as anything I’d seen in the past few weeks.
    Turning away from the door, I hurried toward my closet to get changed out of the clothes I’d worn for the past few days. I didn’t want to be in here, in this familiar-alien room with the desert décor my parents had mandated all these years. I didn’t know how to be here.
    And Zeke was downstairs.
    He was the only part of this new life of mine that still felt sane.
     

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