Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
I stand in a darkened room with wailing wind, creaking wood, and a camera drone thwacking glass. And the only thing that frightens me is loneliness.
I wish you were here.
I can’t tell him that. I can’t make this harder for him than it already is. Because I know it’s already destroying him that he can’t be next to me. I’m not stabbing another blade into the wound.
Three years.
“Yeah,” I say, “I’m fine.”
“I’m going to try to come home early—”
“No,” I cut him off. “You don’t need to do that, man.” I toss my flashlight on the mattress and pick up the phone.
The line deadens for the longest second. “Can you spend the night in Jane’s room?”
If it gives him peace of mind while he’s at work, then my answer is a no-brainer. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“I’m being paged…I have to go,” he rushes.
“See you—” I cut myself off before I say soon. I’m not sure when his shift will end.
“I love you, wolf scout.” It’s the last thing he says. Five longing words that ache greater than silence.
23
MAXIMOFF HALE
Charlie is the only one who agrees with my new plan.
That should be a red flag.
Jane and Farrow have excised themselves from the situation “on principle” while the cousin I’ve been feuding with for years has joined my party of one.
I’m heading into the ER. It looks busy. Won’t be able to text. I’ll call when I can, but I’m going to remind you for the sixteenth time: it’s a bad idea. – Farrow
I reply: Got it.
We can talk about your unreasonable stubbornness later tonight. – Farrow
We don’t see eye to eye on this issue, and it’s not the first time. It won’t be the last. But it does twist me up knowing the two people who should be in my corner have left it. My fingers hover over my cell, trying to think of something to say.
I land on this: OK. Love u. I text back.
Love you, too. – Farrow
Soon after that text, another pops up.
Still a bad idea, wolf scout. – Farrow
It reminds me of his feelings about my sling. I took it off permanently one week earlier than all the doctors advised. Bad idea, wolf scout. We kind of had a fight about it.
A short fight, but Farrow shook his head at me and said, “Give me a second.” He went into the bathroom, and I could tell he was upset. My stomach felt like it dropped out of my body, and I didn’t know how to course correct.
I wanted him on my side, but I also recognized that we’re two different people. And we won’t always agree. As he came out, he checked my shoulder, and the quiet tension strung between us just grew and grew and grew.
And he said, “I wish I’d been here.”
“You wouldn’t have stopped me.”
Farrow looked at me, his eyes reddened. “That’s not why…” That’s not why he wanted to be with me. He just wanted to be with me. And I heard his voice in my head: it’s as simple as that.
Pushing out that raw memory, I take a shallow breath and lean against my parent’s mailbox. Wind whistles inside the gated neighborhood, but the air is a little too hot for early June.
Last night, Farrow was working at the hospital, so I joined in on a movie night with my family. Instead of going home to an empty bed, I ended up crashing in my old room. It was supposed to be my second chance to talk to Xander.
The do-over.
He finished his LARPing costume. A fantasy elf-inspired look: a fur-lined hood, long trousers, a distressed red tunic, leather armguards, makeshift bow and a leather quiver for his arrows. He dressed up, and even let me take some pictures like a mini photo-shoot. Just thinking about that night, my eyes sting.
Because he was happy.
And I didn’t say what I needed to.
I couldn’t do it.
Maybe that makes me a coward, but I’m protecting the good days he has. It’s all I can think about. I just want to ensure that he’s okay, and I feel like if I say something, I’m pushing him in the “not okay” territory.
Farrow is right about one thing. I can’t do nothing.
Which brings me to my new plan. A different plan. I don’t know if it’s better, but it’s something.
In the distance, I spot Charlie ambling down the street, crutches underneath his armpits. He makes slow work of it, so I kick off from the mailbox and meet up with him.
“I thought you were going to take the golf cart,” I say while I pull my Ray Bans to the top of my head, and he stops walking, out of breath.
“I was.” He squints from the sun. “Until I learned Tom and Eliot took the golf cart on a joyride and crashed it into Aunt Daisy’s porch.” I knew that happened, but I thought the golf cart wasn’t too fucked-up to drive.