Chapter Ninety-Five
Ninety-Five
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For the first time since I hit adolescence, I actually enjoy spending time with my parents.
I finally find myself motivated to work on some of my jewellery designs. Part of my creative block was fear of failing to get any stockists to take them, but now that I’m here with my parents, I have flow, and the designs for the sea glass gems I’ve collected on Loor spring out of my fingertips onto my sketchpad.
I feel a pang of guilt as I remember how I left the island. I never gave Caleb a chance to explain. I never got closure. But he should have told me what was going on. We had feelings for each other. Why did he choose to hide so much instead of trusting me with the truth?
Desperate, I channel Betty and pull up the fake Wordle app on my phone, looking for inspiration. I’ll do three games and let them guide my next move.
The first word is Bound.
Island-bound? On Billy Bound’s boat? Maybe it means I should be going back to Loor?
Love-bound? Uggh, yes.
Bound in chains of my own emotional limitations? Tick, tick, tick.
Okay, so ‘Bound’ is relevant but not diagnostic.
Next game. The word is Pulse.
I check my pulse and it’s racing. Again, still relevant but not exactly definitive.
My third word is Happy.
I stare at it. It seems to speak for itself. In a mocking kind of way, because I’m not happy. Maybe I could have been happy if Caleb didn’t have a wife, but he does, and she’s beautiful and funny and buys him uncool clothes that he wears anyway. That’s love. That’s happiness.
I decide to discard Happy and try again. I’ll take the next word instead.
As I play Betty’s game, I think of Caleb’s face. His hair. The width of his shoulders. How it felt when we had sex.
Route.
What does this mean? Is Caleb my route to happiness? Is that what fake Wordle is telling me?
It’s still unclear.
One more and this is the one I’ll listen to.
Even if I don’t like the message, I’ll take this one on board, whatever it is.
The word is Gnome.
What? What could that possibly mean? Caleb is nothing like a gnome. Is gnome a code word for something? Will a gnome appear at a pivotal moment and then I’ll know what to do?
Gnomic, according to my phone definition, means ‘difficult to understand’ or ‘enigmatic and ambiguous’.
Is fake Wordle messing with me?
No, it has no thoughts either way, because it’s a pre-programmed app on my phone.
I am losing my mind.
I come out of the app, and look out the kitchen window.
They’re here.