The One I Trust by L.N. Cronk Read Free Book Online Page A

she added, “It’ll be my treat.”
    I hesitated.
    “I really want to go,” she said. “I haven’t been to an aquarium since I was little.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    One of the first rooms we entered was a small auditorium, filled with several dozen people who were seated on wide, carpeted stairs. The stairs led down to a wall of glass, and in front, a woman wearing a headset with a microphone was ending her presentation about the otters who were playing in their artificial habitat behind her. Just as we got to where we could see well, the presenter thanked everyone for coming, hoped we enjoyed our visit, and switched off her microphone. With that, the crowd began to dissipate, and Emily and I moved closer to the glass.
    “I love otters,” Emily said, her eyes following as one of them streamed swiftly through the water.
    “Do you want to sit down for a minute?” I asked, indicating the carpeted steps behind us.
    She nodded eagerly and we took a seat on the front row. As she watched the otters intently, I watched her, remembering how she’d had the same look on her face when she’d admired the seagulls a few days earlier. I was really going to have to think up another word besides childlike for situations like this. Innocent, maybe?
    Actually, it didn’t bother me much anymore that she was only nineteen. She was going to turn twenty in three days, but by this point I had decided that even if that wasn’t the case, I didn’t really care. Except for when she was watching seagulls or otters, she was more mature than most women my age. She was gentle and kind and caring, and I felt better when I was with her than I had in over a year. And she was beautiful. The more I looked at her, the more I thought this. And the more I really wanted to feel her touch again.
    There was only one thing left that was bothering me now: what in the world did she see in me?
    Sure she was on the rebound, but she had an entire university full of guys her own age to choose from. Guys who liked to have fun and could take her out and show her a good time. Guys who were on their way to successful careers and a lifetime of happiness. Why was she even remotely interested in someone with no money, no house, no job, no car? Someone who’d been accused of horrific things that could be true for all she knew. Someone who had been at best gloomy and at worst downright rude.
    Emily glanced at me and saw me watching her.
    “What?” she asked, tilting her head quizzically.
    I held her gaze, almost afraid to bring it up. Almost afraid to point out how much better she could be doing than me.
    “Why are you here?” I asked her quietly.
    She looked at me for a moment and then asked, “You mean with you?”
    There was that maturity again. She didn’t say, “Because I love otters.” She knew exactly what I was asking her, and she knew exactly why.
    She looked at me for another moment and then turned her eyes back to the tank, drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and resting her chin on her knees before answering.
    “Hale said you’ve been through a lot,” she answered quietly. “He told me that if I could just get past all that, you were worth getting to know.”
    “Hale?”
    She nodded.
    “You don’t know Hale any better than you know me,” I pointed out.
    “No,” she admitted, rolling her head on her knees to look back at me, “but I can tell what kind of a person he is.”
    I looked at her questioningly.
    “Every morning,” she tried to explain, “he brings Molly to school.”
    I nodded.
    She smiled. “Half the time she’s still holding a piece of bacon from where he’s taken her out to eat for breakfast.” I smiled, too as she went on. “He walks her in. He helps her take off her coat. He gets her all situated. And then . . .”
    She looked away for a moment.
    “Then he sits right down on the floor in front of her,” Emily said, meeting my eyes. “He holds her hand and he looks