The Reece Malcolm List Read Online Free PDF Page A

amazing,” my mother says in a tone I can tell is holding back a mushy one. Despite the f-bomb just dropped. “Did you check out the website for New City, Devan?”
    “Yeah, um, it looks great and all, but . . .”
    She reaches across the table to pour more wine into her glass. “But?”
    “Just, the tuition? It’s kind of crazy. And you totally don’t have to do that, and—”
    “Don’t,” she says. “If you like it, that’s what matters.”
    “No, but—”
    “But what?” she asks, which is a dumb thing to interrupt with. Maybe I was just about to tell you . “This is the type of school you need to attend. Discussion closed.”
    I don’t don’t don’t need to. But now I feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong, and I’ll blow it. My place here isn’t exactly safe. “Okay. Sorry, I just—”
    “Oh, God,” she says. “Not the apologizing again.”
    I’m pretty good at acting, which is the only reason I manage not to cry. I get through dinner and help load the dishwasher even though Reece Malcolm and Brad say I don’t have to, and then it feels like it’s hopefully late enough I can politely excuse myself upstairs. From their reactions it seems I’m right about that much.
    The room’s so perfect I feel weird messing it up with my stuff. So even though I’m not really ready to accept this is where I live now, I unpack my suitcase into the closet and the chest of drawers, and then stow the suitcase under the bed.
    It doesn’t take very long, unfortunately, which just gives my brain more time to think about everything going on. And that’s the last thing I want it to do, because I hate the stuff it’s dwelling on. I hate how sure I am that my mother thinks of me as an imposition, that she hasn’t been waiting for me to arrive for sixteen years, that she hasn’t said anything about that at all, and that she seemingly has no excuse for just pretending I didn’t exist this whole time.
    But most of all I hate that I’ve spent my whole stupid life dreaming about this and waiting for it to happen, and here it is and it isn’t at all what I’d hoped for. It’s definitely probably stupid to still think about Dad as much as I do, considering he spent so much of my life ignoring me, but somehow it feels stupider yet to want more from someone who’s done way less for me.
    All books are filled with words, obviously, but Reece Malcolm’s aren’t just there on the page. It’s as if something living is captured, and reading her novels releases it: emotions and an understanding of how life works. Or maybe it’s more like this admission that you can’t understand how life works but instead, like, a devotion to trying to figure it out.
    When I read and reread Reece Malcolm’s books I imagined the person who wrote them. She wouldn’t be like Tracie, who thought anything to do with the arts was a waste of time, and she wouldn’t be like Dad, who kept the world at arm’s length so what did it matter what he thought about life and passion if he’d never tell anyone anyway? But my mother must constantly overflow with creativity and passion and art, I thought. She would understand life and its endless weirdnesses and complications.
    But it turns out that isn’t Reece Malcolm at all.
    “Devan?”
    I jump to my feet as Brad steps into the doorway. “Sorry, I—”
    “Sorry for what?” He holds out a little plate with a piece of pie on it. Some kind of custard with a crispy crust. Probably a British thing. “I wanted to bring you dessert, if you’re up for it.”
    “Thanks,” I say. “You didn’t have to but—”
    “It’s no problem,” he says.
    It’s weird how I just automatically know he means that.
    “Well, I’ll leave you to your pie. Enjoy.” He leaves the room and closes the door behind him. Maybe the dinner and the dessert and the accent just easily sway me, but I trust Brad. So I assume he’s leaving to give me privacy. Still, it feels an awful lot like being shut into a