Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“Oh, fuck you,” I said, but there was no real anger in my voice. I looked back out down the side street, seeing it in the near distance.
He was taking us to the tree.
The damned big, old oak that the two of us used to sit under, playing cards or talking or doing whatever the hell twelve-year-olds did.
When he pulled the car up alongside it, stopping in the dirt rut on the edge of the street, I was surprised how small the tree seemed now compared to how it looked when we were kids.
“Is that really it?” I said.
He smiled, looking out the window. “Let’s go.”
I followed him out of the car, through the clearing of dirt and onto the grass. We cut a path over to the tree.
From under its big canopy, you could just see the high school from here. The middle school was a little closer, and that’s how we used to get to this place—we’d walk here after school, cut a path through the little league field and the park, hop a fence, and cross a dirt lot.
It gave way to grass and trees, and this one was always the one with the most shade.
Ori’s shoes crunched on some leaves at the base of the tree. We approached it, and we looked at the trunk. Now, it seemed bigger again, up against the trunk.
It was still there.
Covered in dust, and only a little softened by time.
Best Friends, Tennessee.
He’d been the one who carved it onto the trunk, when we were eleven or twelve. I’d been too scared, back then, to do anything close to breaking a rule.
I met Ori’s eyes, shaking my head. “We were dumb.”
“I think we were awesome.”
He leaned against the base of the tree and slid down, sitting on the grass below it. I followed, just like I used to, sitting beside him. I plucked a long piece of grass, twirling it around in my fingers.
The breeze was warm today. It smelled the same here as it always had, like dirt and leaves and… well, like home.
You could just make out the edge of the big metal bleachers at the high school, the ones where Ori used to sit and watch me at my practices. By the time high school came around, we didn’t hang out at this tree anymore.
“So,” I finally said.
“So.”
I turned to him, squinting. “You trying to make some kind of point?”
“Just wanted to sit here.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, all right.”
He was silent for another minute, and the only sound was of the wind in the leaves above us.
I felt like there was suddenly something he wasn’t saying, and it was building up a pressure inside me that had no right being there.
I didn’t want to go down memory lane, if all of this was going to disappear within a year.
Why focus on what we used to be if that version of us was over?
My chest hollowed out. I clenched my jaw, waiting for Ori to say something.
He cleared his throat a minute later, finally looking up at me.
“I’m not going to Miami,” he told me.
I stared at him, waiting for another part, or a punchline. But I am going to New York. Or back to LA. Or to frickin’ Paris, France, anywhere away from here.
But that didn’t come.
“Why not Miami?” I managed to say.
He looked away, then back at me. “Because it’s not realistic.”
I hummed, looking at the ground. “Okay.”
“And because I’m in love with you.”
I felt the wind blow in under the edge of my open flannel.
I met his eyes, hanging in the moment, still waiting for some part of it to be a joke. Waiting for the part where he’d tell me he was leaving.
My heart was in a knot.
I want that to be real.
I want it to be real more than any fuckin’ thing I’ve ever wanted.
I swallowed past a tightness in my throat, tossing away the blade of grass I’d torn up with my fingers.
“Miami sounded perfect for you,” I said, my drawl coming out more than ever as I looked away from his eyes. I had to keep beating around the bush, to not look what he’d said dead in the eye, otherwise I felt like I might burst.
“Maybe,” he told me, his voice soft. “But not right now. I, uh, don’t think perfect means what I once thought it did. You know?”
I set my jaw.
I was afraid to ask what he meant by that.
I knew what I wanted to be true, but I couldn’t ask it. Couldn’t say it out loud.
The weight of every year I’d known Ori all came to sit on my shoulders, all at once. I glanced at the distant buildings of the middle school, the baseball field, the bleachers over by Bestens High.
“You know,” I said, sitting up a little taller. “I didn’t protect you back then because I thought you needed it. I knew you didn’t need it.”