Page 79 of The Diamond in the Rough

Lunch.With my sister.

With everything else, I’d almost forgotten I’d met my sister two weeks ago.

And now I felt worse, because not only had I betrayed Raj’s trust, I’d also essentially been behaving as though my sister didn’t exist.

Not that I really knew her, but that was sort of the point, wasn’t it? That she wanted to get to know me. And I should want to get to know her, too.

A normal person would have wanted that right away.

A normal person wouldn’t have invaded someone else’s dreams, either.

I’d promisedto have lunch with Violette on Monday. She’d replied to say that she’d bring me lunch, and that it would be, and I quote, ‘amazeballs.’

I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but I assumed that she wasn’t going to poison me or bring me something that would make me sick, and I’m otherwise not terribly picky about food.

At least Violette wasn’t angry that I hadn’t emailed her first. And she seemed genuinely excited to have lunch withme—at least over email. It was nice that someone, at least, would be happy to see me.

I needed to find something else to do to stop wallowing in guilt and self-pity, since that would only lead to yet another sleepless night, and I was already running on too many of those.

I couldn’t bring myself to even pick upRed Mars, although just looking at it was an unwelcome and unpleasant reminder that I would have to figure out how to give it back to Raj. I could probably ask Hart to do it, but then I’d have to explain that we’d been talking about books, and that would probably lead to me having to explain why I wasn’t going to be able to just give it back myself.

I also didn’t want to not finish it—I hate not finishing books, even when I don’t like them. Once I start one, I have to get all the way through it. Worse, I have to get through a series if I start one, and the Mars Trilogy was, well, a trilogy, which meant that not only did I feel compelled to finishRed Mars, but also the other two books after that.

And I knew that reading them would make me think about Raj.

And thinking about Raj would make me think about the fact that I was a horrible person who invaded other people’s thoughts.

So reading wasn’t an option.

I thought about playing something, even going so far as to start up my laptop, but then all I could do was stare at the screen, unable to decide on a particular game, so I gave up on that, too, after about twenty minutes of indecision.

Neither audiobooks nor something streaming were nearly engaging enough for me to attempt listening or watching, because I’d still need something to do with my hands.

And all that left me with the one thing that was still guaranteed to completely monopolize my attention, even when I didn’t want it to.

I knew it was probably a bad idea.

I did it anyway.

Lying on my bathroom floor,legs propped up on the side of the tub because there wasn’t enough space on the floor for me to actually lie down, I felt like I now probably owed Cass an apology, too. I doubted very much that she’d thought I’d be able to get as much out of the worry stone as I had—I certainly hadn’t thought so.

But I now knew the names of about ten different girls in middle and high school that she’d wanted to kiss, but had never tried to. Four girlfriends shehadkissed. Three co-workers she knew she very much shouldnotkiss, and the one she kissed anyway.

I knew every math test she thought she was going to fail, every French test she’d been desperate to get an A on because she thought Mademoiselle was hot, every dance, date, and awkward flirtation from the age of thirteen to thirty-six.

I knew every fight she’d gotten into with a girlfriend, a parent, a coworker, a friend. One particularly abrasive homophobe who had seen her and a girlfriend holding hands in a park.

I knew that she’d liked Hart instantly, had been afraid of Raj, had hated John Kurtzweil—although she got over that pretty quickly—and felt protective towards Drew Shao.

That in the flash of a few seconds from the moment she’d taken the stone from her pocket and handed it to me,that she’d pitied me, but also hoped I’d be able to get control of my abilities because she liked me and thought I had a lot of courage.

She was wrong, of course, but I was at least glad that she liked me.

I wondered what she would think of me if she found out just how much I knew.

If she found out what I’d done to Raj.

Emotion made my stomach churn again, but I’d already thrown up everything in it, so I didn’t bother trying to sit up.