Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“You know you just made her want you more, right?” Allison asks, putting some space between us. At my confused expression, she laughs. “Girls always want what they can’t have. Flaunting me in front of her was practically a challenge in her eyes.”
“She knows better.”
“Not if she thinks I’m actually your girlfriend. Now she thinks she has a chance to fill that role.”
Good thing I’m not sticking around to find out.
“Was it true? What she said about her sister?” she asks.
“Technically speaking?”
Allison’s lip quirks up at the corner, but before she gets a chance to answer, a gruff voice shouts out her name, causing her head to whip around to see where it came from. Her eyes light up when she sees some guy with a lip ring in black jeans, black boots, and a black zip-up. It doesn’t escape me that he’s the complete opposite of me in my hoodie with my Lobos lacrosse logo on the front, gray sweats, and backwards hat.
“Excuse me,” she says impatiently, gesturing for me to let her out of the booth, all but forgetting about me.
“Who’s that?” I ask, standing.
“My boyfriend,” she deadpans, and I can’t tell if she’s fucking with me, given the circumstances, or if he really is her boyfriend. I don’t have to wonder long, because she runs to him and he wraps his arms around her tiny form, lifting her off her feet. Now the lack of shivers makes sense. She’s into the broody, emo type. Not college lacrosse players who just rolled out of bed and still reek of liquor.
* * *
“FUCK, IT’S BEEN TOO LONG.” Dylan chews on his lip ring, peering down at me. I press my nose into his hoodie as I hug him, inhaling his familiar scent, something I’ve never been able to pin down, but belongs to him and only him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, looking up at him, trying to read his reaction.
I haven’t so much as returned a text, let alone stepped foot in this town since the funeral. Also known as the night we lost our goddamn minds. I was so lost with grief that I tried to make myself feel something—anything—other than the overwhelming sadness threatening to swallow me whole, and when Dylan leaned in to kiss me, I let him. It shouldn’t have happened. We don’t even like each other in that way. But if he’s not going to acknowledge the elephant in the room, I’m happy to pretend like it never happened.
I met Dylan a couple of years ago, after I started spending summers with my dad in River’s Edge. I was sure he hated me the entire first year I knew him. Slowly, his icy demeanor started to melt, and after he stole my journal and discovered my hormone-induced, mediocre at best lyrics, we became friends. It made sense. The aspiring rock star and the daughter of a musician.
“I should kick your ass for staying away that long,” he informs me, taking a seat at our table. The same table we always sat at with my dad and the rest of Dylan’s band. Blackbear was our “spot”.
“I know. I just…couldn’t.” I don’t elaborate, but Dylan nods, knowing exactly what I mean. “But,” I say, straightening my shoulders and perking up my voice, “you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
He looks at me with a questioning expression.
“I’m staying.”
“For good?” he asks.
I pull my worn composition book out of my bag, setting it on the table while I rummage for the complimentary pennant I got at orientation. “You’re looking at the newest Wildcat,” I say, waving the felt red and white flag with the Wildcats logo.
“No shit?” He chuckles, a deep sound that I swear vibrates the tabletop. I was supposed to start at Kerrigan University in the fall, but I never showed. Luckily, once I explained that I had a death in the family, they gave me the okay to start during the spring semester. Never mind the fact that the accident was months earlier. The only downside? They filled my spot at the dorms. Thank God for Halston.
“Yep. I’m rooming with Halston at Manzanita Hall.” Illegally. But that’s neither here nor there.
Halston is my only other friend in the world. My dad used to teach guitar at the high school, and on the seldom occasion that I’d visit during the school year, I’d go with him, disappearing underneath the bleachers to listen to music and write in my journal. Imagine my surprise when a tall brunette in designer shoes showed up, asking if she could hide out with me between classes. I reluctantly obliged, and this girl who looked like she had just walked off the set of a CW show would light up a cigarette and give me all the latest gossip on River’s Edge. At first, I ignored her presence. But Halston is nothing if not persistent.