Her Last Wish by Ema Volf Read Free Book Online Page A

of them. I couldn’t
help it. Nothing was going to ruin this for me.
    “Good morning,
everyone!”
     
    ***
    Charlie
     
    Yep. It was official.
He’d finally lost his mind. And I clearly wasn’t the only one who thought so.
The whole class looked at him as if he’d grown a new head. And the funniest
thing was that it was all over a simple “Good morning.” But that “Good morning”
held more enthusiasm than we’d seen from him the entire semester. It was kind
of nice … and a little frightening.
    The rest of the class
went about the same way. It was like he had turned into a whole new person
overnight. Although he’d always shown interest in his subject, he’d never shown
any interest in us . He’d never cared whether or not we’d read our
assignments, and he sure as heck never cared what we thought about them. I knew
this whole surrogacy thing was important to him, but I had never expected this
much of a difference in his overall attitude just by the knowledge that it
would happen. And I hadn’t even signed anything yet. I knew I would, and
I’m sure he knew I would. But I would have thought he wouldn’t get too
excited about anything until there was something a bit more official, maybe not
even until there was an actual pregnancy.
    Though I suppose I
hadn’t really expected anything, at all. I barely knew him. I hadn’t even known
him when his wife was alive. I wondered what kind of person he was back then.
Was he the person I saw in front of me? If so, I felt worse for him than I had
before. How much pain would a person have to go through in order to go from the
happy, enthusiastic person in front of me to the cold, distant man he’d been
since I’d walked into his class for the first time last semester? Or was he
cold and distant because, deep down, he was that broken and battered man I saw
the other day? And I could still tell he wasn’t completely happy. I knew
a front when I saw one. But I somehow got the feeling that he was acting happy
so he could make himself be happy. For his sake, I hope it worked out
for him. I never wanted him to be so emotionally defeated again. He deserved
peace. Not to mention, I was pretty sure that level of anguish for prolonged
periods of time was the stuff serial killers were made of. If I was going to
help him with something so important, he needed to keep it together!
    Once class was over, I
packed up my things as slowly as possible, staying in my seat and waiting until
everyone else filed out. I didn’t want to make anything look out of the
ordinary. Although I had agreed to do such a huge favor for him, the whole
class didn’t need to know about it. I didn’t want them to think that I was
doing it for anything in return. I wasn’t. If I passed the class with flying
colors, it would be because I worked my butt off for it. I would make sure that
point was clear to him when I spoke with both him and the lawyer later.
    When I finally packed
up the last of it, I searched around the room to make sure everyone was gone and
then turned my attention to the front. When my eyes met his, I was greeted with
a smile that I couldn’t quite translate. It was warm and inviting, but somehow
there was something more to it. It seemed the more alive Professor Mason
appeared, the more mystery there was to him. He wasn’t as exposed. While I was
overall okay with that, I wondered what the heck I’d gotten myself into.
    “Are you ready?” he
asked.
    “Yes, sir,” I replied, pulling
my heavy bag over my shoulder.
    He smiled again and led
me through the hall, out of the building, and to his car. I tossed my bag in
the back and climbed in.
    After a couple minutes
of silent driving, he finally spoke up. “Are you sure you want to do this? I’ll
understand if you back out now. I swear there won’t be any hard feelings.”
    I shook my head. “I
won’t back out. I told you I would help you, and that’s what I will do. If you
don’t want me to go through with it anymore,