I flipped it open, astonished to see that every page was covered with her writing. She’d written an entry in it every day, like a journal, except at the top of each day she’d started out her entry Dear Adam…

I laid the book down on the passenger seat, started the car and headed home. I had the distinct feeling that I wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight.

Chapter Forty-One

Mia

The hotel room in which we were staying for the wedding was only a few blocks away from the beach and I was sharing a room with my mom. When we got back and she came out of the bathroom ready for bed, she paused. I’d set up at the desk with my laptop open and my headset plugged in. I was just about to put Adam’s flash drive in the USB port. Mom watched me and I froze.

“You going to be up playing a game tonight?”

I swallowed and held up the flash drive. “Will it bother you? I don’t know what this is. Adam gave it to me and asked me to plug it in and look at it tonight.”

Her brows rose. “Ah, okay. And, um, how were things with him tonight?”

I looked down and shrugged. It had been cold, distant and awkward. I pretty much figured everyone present could detect that.

Mom sank onto the bed and folded her arms across her chest, watching me. “You need time. And so does he.”

I blinked. “That’s what this past couple months were all about. Giving us time.”

Mom nodded. “You two have been through more than your share of sadness, together and apart.”

I fiddled with the edge of the desk for a moment, avoiding her gaze. It was a delicate situation, to address things like this to a person who was about to begin a new life with the person she loved. “Who’s to say that the sadness is over with?” I said.

“You never know, do you? Life is so uncertain. You’ve learned that lesson this year. There’s never the perfect time to choose to be with the one you love. It’s a commitment that you’ll be there in the good times and the bad. That you’ll hold each other’s hand and do it together.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Mom. And I want you to know that I’m really happy for you.” No matter how weird it made things with me and Adam. Step-relatives or not. Yeah, it was bizarre but we were grown-ups and we’d learn to deal with it. I was hopeful, anyway.

Mom went to bed, turning off the lights, and I put on my headset and plugged the flash drive into the correct port. The screen on my laptop went black, and then lights began to form, arcs and lines and spirals of every color swirling and merging together to spell my name.

And before I knew it, I was being logged in to Dragon Epoch automatically. But it was unlike anything I’d ever played before.

I was standing on the shore of beautiful lake, a sunlit mountain scape forming a jagged backdrop behind. The graphics were new and gorgeous. This was an unreleased part of the game and I surmised that it would be part of the new expansion that hadn’t yet been revealed to players. But as I used the controls to move my character around, words started to appear.

The interface of the game normally did not behave like this, so I surmised that somehow Adam had written a hack of his own game, taking the graphics already produced for his game and putting together a private experience for me alone taken from bits and pieces of Dragon Epoch. My eyes flew to the words on the screen, snatching up every one as if it were food and I a starving woman dying for sustenance.

I know of no other, better way to communicate with you right now but through this medium of 0s and 1s that is my second nature. In this environment we met, interacted and, without even knowing it, fell in love. And like this beautiful place where you are now standing, that love was new, fresh, pristine. An unfamiliar country for both of us. And we were reluctant explorers.

Until we lost our way…

And now the beautiful mountain scape around me began to fade, the screen darkening slowly but steadily until this idyllic landscape became consumed in a dark, murky fog and I couldn’t see anything. Except for those words…they kept coming, even across the darkness.

Everything changed the moment we began to make mistakes, the moment we separated, and each mistake we made caused the previous one to look like nothing in comparison. I accept full responsibility for all the wrongs I did. I am tormented by the way I screwed up then, but I did it because this is the place where you left me, Emilia. Completely, utterly in the dark.

I took a deep breath, continuing to read and unwittingly bracing myself for more raw honesty. I had the heavy feeling that this wouldn’t be easy to read.

“You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.”