with a sudden impatience. “The fact of the matter is that your behavior, recently, in general, it’s been unacceptable. You were perfectly well-behaved until you were involved with Lee Locklear’s son, and now you’ve not only disrespected me, but you’ve lost a lot of credit with the local people for the entire corporation. As I’ve said in the past, this is my life’s work. I don’t know if you can understand this, but our relationships, even interpersonal, with the elders of this area are extremely valuable. Very rarely is any information shared. Now they’re practically up in arms, because of you. I frankly have to ask you to reconsider your current arrangements and associations–”
You have got to be kidding me.
Suppressing a hurricane of rage, Aly took a deep breath. Sounding exasperated, she interjected, “Greg, I am not going to stop seeing Noah.”
He deadpanned, his expression twisting into bewilderment. He looked as though she spoke in an extraterrestrial language and grew a third eye. “You’re what?”
“Not for you, and especially not for your job. No offense.” Aly continued, ignoring him. “I’m not interested in playing games or making face. I’ve seen that thing twice with documentation, heard it a third time, and to tell you the truth, your people suck, especially when it comes to investigation. I mean, Rowley’s cool-”
“The intern?”
“Inevitably and uncompromising,” Aly finished, “the answer is no. Take it for what it is.”
A red line curled down his forehead, his neck taut with veins. He spat, "Do you think you love him?"
Her jaw set. She straightened her shoulders, challenging, "What if I did?"
"You've only known him for a weekend!"
Five days. Five days was enough to change everything. "Then why did you ask?" she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Seriously, Greg? I can't tell if you’re really that manipulative or just stupid. You can't ask the unanswerable and expect me to marvel in your greatness. I'm not a child anymore; I don't revere the ghost of my father to anything or anyone."
"I'm manipulative? What about this entire feat you’re pulling?"
She groaned, covering her face with the hand that wasn't cradling her coffee.
"That's it then, isn't it? It's a hoax." He blew a raspberry, slumping in the seat at her side.
She tucked a curl behind her ear. Leaning forward, she rested her elbows on her knee, switching the Styrofoam cup to another hand.
"I'm going to say this slowly, so you can understand me, for the last time. It is not a hoax, it is evidence that you can choose to utilize or disregard, and at this point, I don't care. All I care about is the boy on the table, in the room with the real doctors."
He swallowed. An Adam's apple bobbed in his skinny neck. "You have my full attention, and that's all you have to say to me?"
She threw a hand up, pointedly staring at the ceiling as though it could offer sympathy. "I really don't know what you expect me to say. I don't know what you want me to feel, or do. I have no freaking idea what you want from me. I tried. Now it doesn’t matter, and I'm going to be okay with that, even if it's not today." Voice thick with sarcasm, she finished, "You failed me, and I guess I failed you. Funny, how life works."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"When they told me what you did, and then I heard it, and I saw that thing... I thought for a second, maybe there was something there I'd missed, something I'd given up on a long time ago: a genuine passion for something bigger than us. Finally, a reason you left that wasn't my fault– like maybe it wasn't something I did wrong. It wasn't me. It didn't have to be me."
"Alyson-"
"But I know better than that," she muttered, bitterly. "It was never me. It was you. So forgive me for not being smart enough to forget about you like Mom did. She warned me, a thousand times. I still wanted a father. I thought I needed you. I never did, though. I still don't. I need my mother, or a real father, none of which you could ever be."
"Then what am I, Alyson?" he demanded.
"Gregory Michael Glass," she said softly. "Just the man with cold eyes."
~
“They said it looked like I slammed into a branch or something. The entire situation wasn’t easy… describing. Jacob said he didn’t think I have nerve or tendon damage, but I’ll have to see a fancy specialist