Even worse than his father’s attack was the look on his science teacher’s face when Scott told her he had blown off the project. He had lost the respect of one of the few people in his life who had believed in him.
Any lingering dreams of college had died the day he pulled the trigger.
But he could imagine Valerie on a red-brick campus complete with ivy climbing the walls, maybe not partying with the frat boys, but turning their heads. Unless she had always dressed in shirts that fit like garbage bags.
“You said you studied materials engineering.” He knew so little about her and wanted to know it all.
“That was my plan.” A nervous laugh burst from her lips, and she gave him a self-conscious glance. “I liked chemistry.”
Of course she did. “How’d you end up working as a hacker then?”
She looked down and tapped her fingers lightly over the keys without actually striking. “I dropped out during my freshman year.”
Her computer’s fan shut off. A clock on the wall ticked nervously, loud in the yawning silence. Scott didn’t move a millimeter.
Valerie lifted one shoulder and tilted her head. “After that, hacking was the only skill I had, and even though I tried to deny it, I enjoyed it. There’s an illicit thrill in solving the puzzle, breaking in.” She stroked the keyboard absently. “Also, I think I secretly hoped working as a white hat might make up for my past crimes. I was naive enough to believe they wouldn’t follow me.”
But you could never really outrun your past, could you? “Why’d you quit school?” he pried.
Valerie frowned but didn’t answer.
“Partied a little too hard, huh?” he teased, hoping to lighten the mood.
Her wan smile did nothing to alleviate the growing turmoil in his gut. “Something like that,” she said, her voice flat.
“Hey.”
She met his gaze.
His heart stopped at the depth of anguish in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.” He forcibly relaxed his posture and leaned against the counter. “I’ll quit interrupting your work.”
“Do you miss Montana?” she fired at him in a head-spinning change of direction as she crossed her arms.
Quid pro quo. Was that what she wanted? Fine then. He took a deep breath. “Some parts of it,” he said. If he wanted her to dredge up the unhappy and painful parts of her past, this was only fair. “We lived pretty far out of town, surrounded by mountains. I miss the billions of stars in the night sky, a hundred times brighter than you’ve ever seen in the city. When I was a teenager, I’d escape outside to sleep under the Milky Way. Nothing on earth makes you feel as insignificant as knowing every prick of light is a sun or a planet. It was liberating to realize how inconsequential we all are in the scheme of things.”
And apparently the memories had liberated his mouth far too much.
“It sounds beautiful,” she said with a sympathetic head tilt. “I’d love to see stars like that one day.”
I’d love to show them to you.
Her face softened, the line of worry between her brows easing. “For me it was clouds. I’d lie on the rotting lounge chair in my aunt and uncle’s little yard and watch them pass overhead, always changing, moving like ocean waves on glass.”
“Sounds nice”
“It was,” she said. “Have you been back? To Montana?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because as much as I love it, I hate it too. If anything good happened to me there, I don’t remember it.”
She frowned and flipped a cracker over and over with her fingers. “That’s how I feel about Texas, except my life there was fine. Right up until it wasn’t.”
He nodded and reached for her hand. “What happened at school?” he asked softly.
The heat kicked on, rattling the vent overhead, and Valerie curled her hand into his, staring at his pale fingers intertwined with her light brown ones. “I went out with this guy Tim a couple of times, but there was no…spark, I guess, so I turned him down for a third date.”
