Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
No “brekky” for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Malaysia. #adventure #LoveIt
I know Zach will see my Instagram post, so I let that be my way of telling him I’ve arrived in a new location.
It’s been three weeks since I’ve seen him. Three weeks since we’ve talked or texted. He comments on my social media posts, but nothing personal.
It’s not that I’m hoping he’s here in Kuala Lumpur, but I wouldn’t complain. He isn’t the easiest guy to erase from my mind—not that I want to forget him. I’d just like to go more than a few hours without thinking about him.
When Zach doesn’t respond right away to my most recent post, I assume he’s in flight or sleeping.
“Zach?” Leah asks as we lug our suitcases onto the subway.
“Yeah. No.” I laugh. “Instagram. So indirectly Zach. Thought it might be kind of me to post that I’m no longer in Australia. He asked me to let him know where I was going.”
“How nice of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I narrow my eyes as we find a spot to stand next to an older couple sharing kind smiles with us.
Leah shrugs. “It just means you’re awfully nice to a guy who doesn’t feel the same way about you.”
“I don’t know how he feels.” I avert my gaze to the window. “And you don’t know how I feel. I had no issue hooking up with Martin.”
“Peter,” she corrects me.
I wince. Peter Martin.
“My point is … I’m being a kind friend. He cares about me in his own way, and when you care about people, you like to know they’re safe. Sadly, Zach is the only person who gives a shit about my whereabouts. That’s why I gave you his information as my emergency contact.”
“I give a shit.”
I roll my eyes. “Sorry. Present company excluded. And I simply posted a pic about my arrival in Malaysia.” I hold up my phone so she can see the post. “I didn’t hashtag MissingZach. I didn’t send him a direct message saying I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have his naked body all over mine.”
The gentleman next to us clears his throat. He must speak English. I give him an apologetic smile.
Leah smirks and lowers her voice. “Oh … my … god.” Her perfectly filled-in eyebrows slide up her forehead. “You didn’t say those things, but you’re thinking them.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she insists.
I giggle. “No. And even if I were, it should be …” My common sense gets ahold of my rambling tongue.
“It should be what?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head.
“Something. It’s something. But what?” Leah angles her head so she’s in my face. There’s nowhere to avert my gaze anymore.
Pressing my lips together, I engage in a silent game of who’s going to blink first. I’m usually good at this game. It’s how I managed to keep my homelessness a secret for so long. But I don’t really want to keep my secret from Leah. I don’t have any other friends—except Zach. This is the one thing I can’t tell him, and I need to tell someone before I lose my ever-loving mind.
So I blink first.
“It should be okay for me to think whatever I want of Zach.”
Leah’s eyes narrow a fraction, curiosity drawing lines along her forehead.
“Because he’s my husband.”
Those lines on her forehead vanish, and a blank expression replaces all confusion like her heart stopped beating—like all emotion and coherent thoughts died on impact from my words. “Excuse me?” she whispers.
“Legally.” I feel the need to put that out there.
“Is there any other kind?” The confusion returns as her head cants to the side.
I frown. “Sadly, yes.”
“Em … I’m lost.”
We get to our stop, and I nod toward the exit. I’d rather not confess my legal indiscretions around English speaking people like the old couple. “He married me so I could have his health insurance.”
Leah laughs. “That’s crazy, Emersyn.”
“It’s not,” I murmur. “I need it.”
“Em, I went several years without insurance. If you’re young and healthy, the chances of you needing it are slim, unless you get into some sort of accident. And if that’s the case, you’ll probably die anyway. So fuck the hospitals.”
We merge into the sidewalk traffic and head toward our hostel.
“I have a little condition. It’s not a big deal. I take medication for it.”
“You said those were vitamins you take every day. What’s your condition? I asked if you had any health issues that could interfere with traveling.”
“It’s under control, and it’s clearly not interfering with anything.”
Leah sighs. “Is it cancer?”
“No.” I laugh. “I wouldn’t call cancer a little condition.”
“You’d be surprised at how many people who wanted to check a bunch off shit of their bucket list would call cancer a little condition.”
“It’s epilepsy.”
“Jesus …”
“No.” I laugh again. “Not Jesus. Jesus is the response to cancer. Bummer is the response to epilepsy.”