Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh Read Free Book Online Page A

And he hit you.”
    “It says it was a he?”
    The timer was racing, the seconds bleeding away. Thirty-one seconds. Twenty-eight. “No, I know it was a he because I—.” He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. There wasn’t time. If he told her, there wouldn’t be time to explain, to express how sorry he was. To ask her forgiveness.
    Nineteen seconds.
    “I’m sorry,” he finally said.
    She smiled. It was clearly meant to be a sunny smile, but with limited muscle control it looked like she was showing Rob her teeth. From her profile he knew she’d had a beautiful smile. “Sorry for what? I should be the one apologizing. You’re being kind enough to visit, and all I’ve done is talk about my accident.”
    Eight seconds. She couldn’t see the timer. She had no idea how little time they had.
    “So you must have died instantly. No pain.”
    “No pain. At least, I don’t remember any.”
    Her eyes went blank; the muscles in her face relaxed all at once.
    Rob stood, stared down at her, his legs trembling, threatening to give way. “Shit. Oh, shit.” What was he going to tell his father?
    The window slid silently over Winter. Rob watched fromthe bottom of the blackest despair as the crèche retracted back into the wall. With nothing else to do, he left.
    Nine thousand dollars, wasted. He’d have to lie to his father, tell him everything went swimmingly, that Winter had been incredibly understanding under the circumstances.
    Who was he kidding? He couldn’t pretend everything was nifty for two minutes, let alone indefinitely. He could barely walk; he felt like there were fifty-pound weights around his ankles, a hundred-pound sack across his shoulders.
    “
Idiot.
” Rob punched his palm. An old man with pink hair turned to look at him. Rob resisted giving the old prune the finger. Despite how he’d dreaded this visit, he’d also felt a flicker of hope that somehow it would make things, if not right, at least bearable. However Winter had reacted, there would have been some succor in facing her. Instead he was leaving with nothing. As he reached the exit, Rob slowed. He turned to face the enormous room, the walls broken into hundreds of boxes, the farthest rows the size of postage stamps. If he had money, he could simply go back and do it again, but he had nothing. He had worse than nothing—he was nine thousand dollars in debt.
    Head down, Rob stepped through the exit into a cutting wind and swirling snow. Idris was waiting for him.
    “Did you see her?”
    “Yes, I saw her.”
    “What did she say to you?”
    “She told me to rot in hell,” he answered without thinking,
    “Good for her.”
    Rob walked off, Idris’s sobbing growing fainter with each step. He felt so disgusting, like he was leaving a foul odor in his wake that Idris could smell, even through a screen. Hehad to do something; he couldn’t live with himself, trailing that odor. Maybe he should kill himself.
    He wasn’t sure he was capable of killing himself, and even if he were capable, he couldn’t do that to his father.
    His father had been right—the only possible absolution would come from facing Winter West. Which meant the answer was obvious. No matter what it took, he had to return and face Winter. Nothing else mattered.
    He’d have to suspend his musical career for the time being, find reliable hourly work that paid. Otherwise it would take years to raise nine grand. He could cut expenses. Most of his money went to rent and system fees. He could go on living with his father, so rent wasn’t a problem. His biggest expense by far was his system.
    There was no getting around it: he’d have to give up his system for a few months—suspend his account and pick up some ancient handheld for the unavoidable stuff like paying tolls.
    All that was left was to tell his father what had happened. It was ironic—he had to face his father and ask his forgiveness, because he hadn’t been able to do so with Winter. He would, though; he would