She’d planned this moment all her life. So why wasn’t she happy? Malcolm Moore’s smile flitted into her awareness, causing her pulse to dance like mating butterflies. Malcolm Moore was more than a good teacher. He was becoming a good friend, maybe the best friend she’d ever found. She was grateful for that, but…
But what?
But deep down, you’re afraid of him, that’s what. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to be, which scared her even worse.
Starlight silvered the rolling breakers. In her own time, the sea had wiped out some of the world’s greatest cities. Margo didn’t understand all the science and stuff that had caused The Accident. All she knew, was a burning need to grasp the opportunity before her. And she would grasp it. Come hell, high water … or Malcolm Moore. How much time was left? She counted backwards in her head. Three months. Margo bit her lip. Was she being foolish, rushing her training just to prove him wrong?
”I have to! I just have to …”
Her father’s voice, angry and slurred, slapped her from out of the past. “You’ll turn out same’s her! Filthy, stinking whore-”
My mother was not a whore
All those years ago, Margo had wanted to shout it back at him. Not shouting it had probably saved her life. But not saying it then or now-didn’t change facts. Everyone else had said it: the cops, the news people, the foster parents who took her out of a hospital bed and gave her a home in another town. Even the judge who’d eventually passed sentence on her father had said it: Margo, trying to rebuild her life, had turned a dry-eyed mask to the world to hide the pain.