Who We Could Be - Chelsea M. Cameron Page 0,15
we want. Give me that.” She held out her hand that wasn’t holding onto the wheel.
“What if there’s an emergency?” I said, clutching my phone. I wasn’t going to send a message to him, but there were other people I needed to keep in touch with.
“I’ll give it to you if there’s something important. Hand it over.” Deep down, I knew she was right, so I gave her the phone.
“You’re not going to pretend to be me and text him back, are you?” I said, instantly suspicious. That was exactly the kind of thing Tessa would do.
“No, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do anything but keep him from getting to you for today.”
I sighed and looked out the window.
“Pick a playlist,” Tessa said, handing me her phone. I scrolled through and found one she’d made that was my favorite and put it on so it piped through the car speakers.
“Where are we going?” I asked, picking at one of my nails. My ring glinted on my hand and I thought I was going to throw up looking at it, so I made sure Tessa wasn’t watching as I slipped it off my hand and into my pocket. Now I just had to be sure that I wasn’t going to lose it. When I got back later, I’d have to do some research on what to do with it. Returning it to TJ was not an option. I’d chuck it in the ocean first.
“We’re going where we’re going. Stop trying to ruin it. You’ll like it, I promise.” I wasn’t so sure about that. In fact, I highly doubted it, but at least this was a distraction, at least for a few seconds.
Tessa stopped to get coffee and ordered without me even having to ask. She handed it over and I sipped the caffeinated goodness. I was feeling stronger already.
“Eat that too.” She chucked a bag of croissants at me and I forced myself to choke down a few bites. Coffee was one thing, but food still wasn’t really sitting well with me.
The playlist rolled through the songs that we loved, and I watched Tessa as she dramatically sang along to every single one. Her brain was not only filled with random facts, but it was full of hundreds of song lyrics. I’d seen her memorize an entire song after listening to it two or three times. Tessa’s brain fascinated me.
“Here we are,” she finally said. I honestly had no idea where we were, but I could read the sign that said Maine Cat Sanctuary.
“You know I can’t have a cat at my apartment, we’ve talked about this so many times.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want one, someday. I loved animals.
“We’re not going to adopt one. We’re going to go pet some kittens. Come on.” She got out of the car and wrenched my door open, a huge grin on her face. I still couldn’t smile, but I appreciated her effort.
“Come onnnnn,” she whined, heading toward the door.
“Okay,” I said.
“SEE? ISN’T THIS AWESOME?” Tessa said as she put as many kittens as she could into her lap at once. They all gravitated toward her, like she was the cat whisperer. I’d seen her do shit like this before with lots of animals. She definitely had some kind of supernatural powers where that was concerned.
I had only been able to lure two kittens toward me. One was all-black with one tiny white sock, and the other had impressive ear tufts and multi-colored fur. The black one was asleep in my lap, and the other one kept lightly biting my hand if I stopped petting the top of its head.
All of the kittens were up for adoption, but that definitely wasn’t a decision I was making today. Not in this emotional state.
“Yes, you’re very cute,” I said, picking up the bitey kitten. It meowed in my face and then tried to bite my nose. “You are a little troublemaker.”
“Oh my goodness yes, what is wrong?” One orange furball had been screaming at Tessa and she picked up the sweet thing and put it to her ear.
“Oh no, and then what happened?” She pretended to listen as the kitten meowed over and over again. “That’s terrible, I’m so sorry.” She kissed the soft head and cradled the fluff to her chest.
“We redheads understand each other,” she said. The kitten had stopped complaining and its eyes kept closing as if it was going to fall asleep.
“What am I going