Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
And I remember he’s gone.
Left yesterday.
The goodbyes are a blur. I was swallowing down everything I felt, putting on a brave front. He was just leaving for a little while, right? He’d be back. He promised.
I just stay on the floor, close my weary-ass eyes, and try to fall back asleep.
Then my phone dings from the coffee table, opening my eyes right back up. I reach up and grab it, almost whacking it onto the floor in the process, and bring the bright-ass thing to my sleepy, squinting eyes.
It’s a text from Bridger.
He has the audacity to ask if I’ve gone on my morning jog yet.
I frown and type out an angry response, then throw my phone aside, roll over, and shut my eyes to sleep.
My phone dings a minute later.
He says he doesn’t care if I was in the middle of a nice dream.
Minutes later, I’m sitting up, back against the couch, texting him about how I’d be far more motivated to continue my morning jogs if he was here to give me a wake-up blowjob first.
He sends back a selfie with his fist in front of his face and his tongue dug into the inside of his cheek, poking it outward like it’s my dick in his mouth.
I crack a smile.
Then reply with a selfie of me rocking my eyes back.
I can practically feel him sitting right next to me as we text, grinning or laughing in that muted, understated way he does from my responses. Y’know, when he’s trying not to laugh because he’s a totally mature grown-up adult man, but can’t help himself.
Then he asks me if I got the gift.
I look up from my phone at the box sitting on a table next to Juni’s vanity.
I tell him I did.
He asks if I opened it.
After a breath, I set the phone down on the couch, rise off of the floor, and bring myself over to the medium-sized box—which I refused to open when it was left for me.
I felt like opening it would be like accepting that he’s gone.
So I didn’t.
I’m playing mind games with myself. Pretending he’s just on a quick trip to Fairview. Or down to the beaches at Dreamwood Isle with Pete for some reason. Kansas is too far, so he’s definitely not there. Why the hell would he go to Kansas other than his family?
Guess same argument can be made about Spruce.
Except I’m what’s here. It’s me. I’m the thing. Ain’t that enough of a reason for him to stay here?
I didn’t even say goodbye. I told him let’s not do goodbyes, not hug it out, not give a kiss that’ll feel like the last kiss I’ll ever give to anyone, ever. Let’s just part ways like we’ve done a couple times over the last few weeks, like it’s no big deal, like we’ll see each other again soon. Denial, denial, denial.
On his way out of town, he swung by and dropped a box off at the front of Juni’s apartment.
This box.
“Fuck it,” I mumble to myself, then tear open the box. It takes more effort than I care to admit. The tape is tight and I just cut my nails a day or two ago. My arms feel like noodles as I give up on removing the tape properly and start yanking randomly at the box from all angles with all my might.
Then it opens at last.
Inside is a single item: his denim jacket.
Is it funny the first thing I notice is how neatly it’s folded? It’s like a bit of Bridger himself is in this box, just in the meticulous, careful way in which this denim jacket sits in here for me.
For me.
I return to my phone to find him having left a text: Keep it safe for me until I’m back, alright?
I’m gnawing on the inside of my lip. Then I text back to him, asking if this is his way of protecting me while he’s gone.
“It’s a totally shitty morning, right?”
I look up, surprised to find Juni at the hallway, her hair a total mess, in nothing but one of her oversized t-shirts, barely covering her thighs. “What’re you doin’ up?” I ask back.
She yawns, picks something out of her eye, and says, “I have no idea. Divine intervention, probably.”
I smile. At least I’ve got Juni.
She didn’t take Pete’s parting as hard as I took Bridger’s. In fact, she hasn’t changed a bit, as if Pete was never here. She’s the same. Even ordered a dress to try out for this coming weekend when we “totally, definitely will be going back to the Saloon”.
But the idea of going back there.
Without Bridger.
What’s the point?
“Wanna go on a mornin’ jog with me?” I ask her.
She wrinkles up her face like I just fed her a sock. “Uh, no. The heck kinda demented question is that?”