Page 25 of Journey to Cheshire Bay

“And you didn’t find it hard?”

He shook his head, and a teasing smile stretched across his full lips. “I’d finally felt like I wasn’t bored. The classes were more enjoyable, and I easily caught on to whatever was being taught. I started middle school at nine.”

“Nine? Wow.” Most middle schoolers started when they were eleven, going on twelve, or close to it. Definitely not at nine. “So, you’re really smart then.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t like to make a big deal out of it.”

“Modest too.” I smirked and stared at an outcropping with a tiny waterfall trinkling from a small hole. “How did you fall into rocketry?”

“Through a computer game called Kerbal. Ever play?”

I shook my head. “Games aren’t my style.”

Nor were computers if I were being honest. They were great until they acted up, which mine did regularly. I was ninety-five percent sure my ancient laptop had a foot in the grave and wouldn’t start up when I got to my new destination.

Holden continued. “I loved building the rockets and flying the Kerbans, those are the little aliens, into space. You need to understand a lot of flight dynamics and velocities, and it was right up my alley. After my homework was all completed, I played Kerbal until bedtime.”

“Obsessed much?”

“I really loved it and the mechanics behind it, so I started taking online college level courses while still in grade eleven. The teachers at St. Jude’s were really good to me, and very encouraging. They pushed me hard, especially when I told them about the courses. The students sucked of course, aside from my best friend, Jeremy.”

Right. The huge football star in the NFL.

“By the way, I don’t recall seeing you around in grade eleven.” Holden tipped his head and raised both his brows in question.

“Yeah, I got a new home.”

“You moved around a lot?”

I turned away and watched as another sign warning for falling rocks passed by. “All part of being the badass foster child. House to house.”

“Jesus. That’s hard to imagine.”

“It’s hard to live.”

“Have you always been a foster child?”

Inhaling sharply, I studied his face for sincerity. It’s not like I kept that part of my life under wraps, but it was still not usually something I discussed. “My mom abandoned my dad and I when I was two or maybe three? Just up and left one day. Dad never handled the abandonment well and decided raising a kid on an overnight stock clerk salary wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life, so one night when I was five, he didn’t come home.”

“At all?”

I shrugged. “Nope. I wandered over to the neighbours at some point, but he never came home, and they called the cops. After that, I got a new home. But it changed frequently. Nothing longer than a year, eighteen months if I was lucky.” And that was the longest stint in one place. “Most averaged weeks at best.”

Holden went tight-lipped and shoved his fingers through his hair. “Was adoption an option?”

“I honestly don’t know. I was a kid. Maybe. But maybe they chose not to add me permanently to their families, for whatever reason. Wow, would you look at that?” I pointed to a monument as we passed by. “We’re at the highest point in the Rocky Mountains.”

From my left, Holden released a breath. “Well, not really, no. Technically, we’re only at the highest place on this highway. There are mountain peaks that are higher, the tallest of which is Mount Robson in Jasper National Park, quite north of here.”

“Whatever. Still, it’s pretty cool.”

Holden pulled into the rest stop at Roger’s Pass, and we took a quick tour of the wooden arch monument. However, it was freezing cold, even in August, so we took a few pictures, and hopped back into the warmth of the rental car.

I sat back in my seat and stared at the tops of the mountains, with their snow-white caps as Holden continued to journey westward.

The clouds had parted for a second, and a ray of sunshine gave a diamond-encrusted glitter to the top of one. I enjoyed my view, thankful I wasn’t the one with a deep-seated focus on the road, like Holden. However, he was a source of wild and random facts as we travelled further west, through another town, and then over a river.

Signs with names likeCrazy Creekwhipped by on my right as we sped a whole two kilometers over the speed limit along the two-lane highway. At this pace, our arrival time in Vancouver would get later and later. Since he had left Golden in a rush, I figured we’d stay that way, but somewhere along the highway, his speed dropped to the limit.