Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Read Online Books/Novels: | Beautiful & Terrible Things |
|---|---|
Author/Writer of Book/Novel: | Riley Hart |
| Language: | English |
| ISBN/ ASIN: | B08PW46XQM |
| Book Information: | |
We were six years old when I fell in love with Gage Beaumont. We were seventeen when he realized he felt the same. His dad was the town troublemaker, and I was the son of a cop. We couldn't have been more different, yet we were best friends, had each other's backs, and kept each other's secrets. What you are, I am, we always said. Then one night irrevocably changed our lives forever. It's ten years before I see Gage again, and instantly I can tell he's not the same boy I fell in love with. We're both haunted and hardened by the memory of that night--of everything we did and saw. Yet as much as we've changed, the connection between us lingers. Our history is so devastatingly complicated that it's difficult to allow ourselves happiness. With every touch, every laugh, every moment we take back, the more signs I see of the old Gage resurfacing. Little by little, I'm becoming the Joey he remembers too. But it's never that easy. If we truly want to heal, we have to find strength not only in each other, but in ourselves. Life is filled with beautiful and terrible things, and this time, we'll do whatever it takes to hold on to the good, and to each other. ****Warning: While this is a story about friendship, found family, and two men epically in love, it also deals with difficult themes: childhood physical and verbal abuse, some violence, depression, and anxiety. | |
| Books by Author: | Riley Hart |
PART ONE
Who We Were
PROLOGUE
Joey
Six Years Old
“Why are you so small? Even the girls are bigger than you.”
“And quiet. You’re super-duper quiet.”
“Dunno.” I shrugged. It was the first week of school. There were three of them, standing in front of me and waiting for an answer about why I was the way I was. How was I supposed to know?
“You’re a shrimp,” one of them said.
“His arms are like twigs,” another added.
They laughed. I tried not to cry. If I did, that’d really make me a baby. That was what Dad always said. “How’d I end up with such a little baby for a son? You’re too soft, too weak. I sure hope you grow out of this shit.” I guessed if Dad and these guys thought something was wrong with me, they must be right, so I just stood there and took it the way I took it with Dad.
They started laughing harder, and I tried to make myself even smaller, hoped I could shrink in on myself until there was nothing there. Wished I was up in the sky—not like dead or anything; I just liked the stars.
“Leave him alone.” I turned toward the new voice. His name was Gage. He was in my class. He had dark, messy hair and holes in his shoes. You could tell his clothes weren’t new like everyone else’s. “You’re just jealous ’cuz he’s smarter than all three of you put together.”
The guys grumbled. “Nuh-uh. You’re stupid,” one of them replied.
“Whatever. Just leave him alone. His daddy is a police officer, and he’ll arrest you!”
Oh…why hadn’t I thought of that? To use who my dad was that way, but then, I wouldn’t have wanted it to get back to him. I wanted to be strong like he was.
All three boys’ eyes widened. “Whatever. We don’t care about him anyway.”
“You’ll have to deal with me if you do,” Gage replied, making my pulse shoot up to the sun.
The guys mumbled another whatever and walked away.
Without a word, Gage turned to go the other direction, so I said, “Wait.”
He stopped, turned, and looked at me. “Yeah?”
“Um…thanks.”
His cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink, as if he was embarrassed I thanked him.
I liked pink. I didn’t know why more boys didn’t seem to like it, why they called it girlie or made fun of boys who wore it.
“I don’t like mean people,” he replied.
I didn’t like mean people either, but I still wouldn’t have said anything to them. He gave me a shy smile. I only knew it was shy because mine always were, and it reminded me of that—the way my eyes darted away when I did it. I bet all my smiles at him would be that way.
He started to walk away again. “Hey!” jumped out of my mouth. Courage seemed to rise in me out of nowhere. Maybe somehow, I was taking it from him, like it radiated off him and penetrated my skin, my muscles, my bones. “Do you wanna be friends?” I asked just as the teacher said it was time to go in from recess.
His cheeks turning that pretty shade of pink again, Gage shrugged. “Yeah, all right.”
Butterflies danced around in my belly, tickling me. Maybe that was something weird about me too, so I tried to shoo them away as I walked over to him.
We went into the school together, and later that day when we got to work with partners, Gage came right over to work with me.
Ten Years Old
“Mr. Beaumont, if you expect to pass fifth grade, you need to be working a lot harder,” I heard Gage’s teacher tell him as I waited for him. “You don’t turn in any of your homework.” We weren’t in the same class this year, and it sucked. Still, we spent all our time together. We walked to the bus together at the end of the day, and sat together until my stop, which was before his. Gage lived farther out of town. The biggest stretch of time we spent away from each other was during baseball season. Gage was really good. My dad liked that about him. It was the only thing he liked about Gage. Most of the time he said he was a hoodlum with a criminal for a dad.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” the teacher asked Gage. “Are there problems at home?”
People always thought Gage’s dad was up to no good. While he drank too much, he never did anything bad that I knew of. He didn’t say the kind of things to Gage that my dad sometimes said to me. He did get arrested a lot, though. Sometimes he let Gage stay at home by himself all night, or even longer, but Gage said I couldn’t tell anyone about that, especially not my dad.