Middle Ground by Katie Kacvinsky Read Free Book Online Page A

sitting on a beige couch sharing vitamins instead of eating a meal together. They watched a wall screen instead of each other. Their kids played on the white carpeting with electric learning pads. It made me feel lonely. I stared back at Justin, so confused I could barely think straight. Hadn’t he just told me this wasn’t going to work?
    “Why would you look for an apartment?” I asked with annoyance. “You’ve never had your own place before.”
    My tone made him hesitate. He ran his hands through his hair. “You’re right,” he said. “I never felt the need to, until now. I always thought having a home would be like dropping an anchor. And my life doesn’t settle down very often, so what’s the point?”
    “Exactly,” I agreed. “What’s the point?”
    He looked bemused. “I want to be here,” he said.
    “You want to live in
Los Angeles?
” I sighed. What a lovely idea. First he tells me he wants to break things off, then he says he’s moving to the city I live in. And he’s hoping it won’t be awkward if we run into each other. That’s just great.
A
for
awesome.
    “I think you’re nuts,” I said.
    His eyes widened. “Why’s that?”
    I stopped walking and pointed out the endless trail of advertisements around us, built so high up they practically covered the sky. “This place is everything you despise. It’s completely plugged in. There’s noise everywhere. They don’t have trees here. They don’t even have fake ones. They’d get in the way of all the digital billboards.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “You’d hate it here,” I said, and glared at him. This slow-motion breakup was grating on my heart. I just wanted him to say it and get it over with. He stared back at me with surprise, like I’d tried to slap him. Then a thought entered my head, like a quiet knocking, like a reserve parachute opening and snatching me up seconds before my body would have collided with the ground.
    I held up my hand. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Rewind. Start over. You’re in town to look for an apartment?”
    “I was just considering it, forget it,” he said quickly, like he’d already dismissed the idea.
    “Why were you considering it?” I asked.
    He looked at me then, really looked at me, with the same intense stare he gave me at the club. It was a stare that, I realized, wasn’t trying to mess with my mind; he was just trying to make sense of his own.
    “Because you’re here,” he said. He paused for a second and then spoke his next words slowly, like he was getting used to the idea. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, and me, the past few weeks.” He stopped because he was tripping over his words. I started to smile. It seemed like I was the only person who could make his smooth confidence waver.
    “You want to live here to be close to me?” I said for him.
    “Yes,” he said without hesitating. He watched me carefully. “This isn’t a fling, Maddie. What’s happening here—I don’t do crushes. I want to make this work. Because you’re worth it.” He took a few steps closer to me. “I figured since you told me you loved me a few weeks ago, you’d be okay with the idea.”
    I inhaled a breath of relief. “I’m sorry. I thought you were breaking up with me,” I confided. Justin walked up to me and we were both smiling. He ran his fingers under my chin and lifted my face.
    “
You’re
the one who’s nuts,” he informed me.
    He leaned down and kissed me, and I realized Justin’s decision would change everything. This move wouldn’t be temporary. He was moving more than his life. He was moving his heart. Putting it closer than down the road from me. He was putting it right in my hands. Right where I’d wanted it since the first day I met him.

Chapter Six
    An open ZipShuttle came to a stop next to us and Justin pulled me inside. We scanned our fingerprints and fell onto the car seat. I broke away from his mouth long enough to mumble the address to Pat and Noah’s