Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
But apparently, from what I hear, this is a punishment for him.
For being expelled from that boarding school.
The whole manor is abuzz with the news that the second son of the Davidsons finally got expelled for having drugs in his dorm room. Marijuana. Since this was his like, tenth offense or whatever, no amount of donation or Davidson influence could save him. And his dad is furious. So sending him to Bardstown High West is his way of teaching him a lesson. Sort of like going from riches to rags for not appreciating the riches.
So he isn’t here for only a couple of days or the weekend, he’s home forever.
And I’m going to see him, not only on the estate, but also around campus. Because we share one with the high school.
I’m also going to see his best friend, Lucas.
Because he’s back too.
Lucas Wayne.
Actually, he’s more than his best friend.
Lucas is Reign’s brother, or rather the brother he never had, even though he does have a brother, Homer. But not only is Homer eight years older than Reign, he’s never home and so Homer and Reign have never been close. In fact, Homer finds his younger brother as disappointing as the rest of their family.
Anyway, Lucas and Reign are inseparable and have been since the age of eight.
Where one goes the other follows.
What one does, the other does as well.
Which means that if Reign was caught with drugs, Lucas was caught too and so he was expelled as well. And since Lucas’s dad — his mom died when he was little, according to the manor gossip — is great friends with Reign’s dad, they decided to send their son to the same poor public school for punishment.
So yeah.
That’s what happened to me today.
The guy who I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for a year is back. And he’s back for good. And I’d be super happy about the news. I’d be overjoyed, ecstatic, thrilled and positively giddy about the news if he hadn’t done what he had done.
If he hadn’t said what he’d said.
Servant girl.
He thinks I’m a servant girl.
He thinks that I’m the wrong crowd.
And it would’ve been okay. It would’ve been totally fine, if he’d only said that. But then he had to go and insult my mom and dad, with his stupid chef and lawnmower comment.
I mean, what does that mean?
Why did he do that?
And if that’s what he thinks about me, then why give me that gift?
Why give me the stupid anklet?
You know what, I’m going to give it back. I’m going to just… throw it at his arrogant, smug face and then demand an explanation.
Demand to know what his problem is.
That stupid, idiot jerk.
That Bandit.
~Echo
Who: The Bandit
Where: The second-floor bedroom in the manor on the Davidson estate
When: 1:15AM; five years ago, one day after Echo’s thirteenth birthday
He wants her.
He fucking wants her.
And he wants her a lot.
He wants her so much that he couldn’t stop talking about her last night. He couldn’t stop asking me questions. How I knew her; what I was doing there with her; why was her foot on my thigh; was she hurt; should we go back and look.
He wants her like a lovesick puppy.
Like she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. Like her quirks, her love of pink, her synonyms, her honey-blonde hair, the fact that she has a diary makes something move in his chest. Because he keeps a diary too.
But he doesn’t, does he?
Because I do.
I keep a diary. And when I found out that she does too, things moved in my fucking chest. For the first time, those things weren’t laced in embarrassment, in shame that I keep a journal like a fucking pussy. A stupid fucking habit formed at a therapist’s office that has proven hard to break.
Not only that, I want her so much that the first thing I did when I came back to this hellhole town, to this nightmarish manor, was to go look for her, in the same woods, at the same time that I’d met her a year ago.
With a piece of jewelry in my back pocket.
That I actually bought with my own money. Well, from selling pot, but still.
And it makes me angry.
For so many, many reasons.
Firstly, because I want her in the first place. Enough to do the things that I just mentioned.
And it doesn’t make sense that I do.
She’s fucking thirteen. She’s a baby and I hardly know her.
And secondly, I’m angry because of how angry it makes me that my best friend wants her too.
So angry that I want to fucking punch his face.
I wanted to fucking punch his face last night to make him stop talking. I wanted to fucking stab his eyes for looking at her.
And since I couldn’t do any of those things, I warned him off her. I told him who she was and how she wasn’t the girl for him because she’s the staff, or the daughter of the staff anyway. Something me and him have been warned time and again to stay away from, by both our fathers. Apparently, you can’t consort with the staff.