Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 188957 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 188957 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
“First,” Jupiter interrupted her, rolling her eyes. “Stop apologizing for wanting to see him. Or even stalk him. Like, stalking isn’t even illegal.”
Echo threw a pen at her. “It is, you dumbass. Stalking is illegal.”
Jupiter scoffed. “Ugh, whatever. You’re only doing it out of love.”
Echo frowned. “Um, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to hold up either way. In court, I mean. When he slaps me with a restraining order.”
“He’s not gonna slap you with a restraining order.”
“Well, he might. You didn’t see his face when he broke up with me, okay?”
That led to Jupiter and Echo arguing for the next few minutes until I put a stop to it, saying that I’d help.
“Help how?” Echo asked.
I shrugged. “Leave that to me.”
Jupiter and Echo looked at each other before Echo said, “Does it involve you…” She searched for a word. “Interacting with him?”
My heart raced but I held on to my composure. “It might.”
“Then absolutely not.”
“But —”
“No,” Jupiter chimed in. “Echo is right. As much as it pains me to say it. You absolutely shouldn’t mess with him, Poe.”
“But he’s not gonna do anything. He wouldn’t. Not now.”
“That may be so,” Echo said, her eyes concerned. “But you still walk around with this shadow over you. You still walk around all sad ever since that whole camera thing. I don’t know what happened exactly but I don’t want you to do something that will only make you sadder.”
I had to tighten all my muscles and swallow and blink several times to get rid of all these surging emotions inside of me.
I haven’t told them everything that went down in the past few days. Except to say that the plan didn’t work and I didn’t want it to either. And that I’m staying here till the end of summer school. But I have no anger or bitterness about it. I have no anger or bitterness about my guardian either.
Of course that was shocking.
Especially since I devoted all my time and energy into hating him and letting everyone know how much I hated him.
But they didn’t ask questions and I didn’t offer any explanations.
And I’m not going to. Because a lot of what has happened — how he behaved; how I behaved — is tied up to his past and that’s his story, not mine.
Although I did tell them about Jimmy and his infamous kidnapping plan. And how Alaric was right to keep me away from him, and sending me to St. Mary’s in the hopes that I’d be safe under its rules was his way of protecting me.
So they both hate Jimmy now, as they should, and have been listening to me vent about the fact that he wrote me emails.
Yes.
Since I’ve given my secret phone, the one I used to contact Jimmy, back to Mo — I’d brought it with me the night I ran away to see her — he has no way of contacting me except through emails. And he has. Several times. Most of them contain paragraphs and paragraphs of apology and how he fucked up and how he needs me.
Both to be his friend slash girlfriend and for my money.
Because Big Jack is putting all kinds of pressure on him.
I see them. I delete them. I contemplate my stupid choices and how naive I was and then I move on.
So it’s basically my friendly duty to help Echo. For being my friend, for listening to me, for not asking questions and doling out judgements. For simply being there.
Not to mention, I understand her need.
To see him, I mean.
To simply be close to him.
It’s a longing that I feel too.
Plus the infamous and archaic bed check rule has been put in place. Yeah, he finally executed it so now every night, twice, the warden peeks through the small square window in the door to see if we’re in our beds or not.
It did shock me, yes.
Not because I’m planning on breaking any rules but because he did it in the first place. But I guess that’s what he came here to do and I know how seriously he takes his responsibilities. Only I’m not sure if he likes this responsibility or not, being the principal. But it’s not my place to ask so there you go.
All I know is that this means she can’t even sneak out.
So I have to help her.
With that determination, I walk up to his office during lunch and talk to his assistant, Janet, about getting myself an appointment with him. Echo’s ex-boyfriend will be at the bar on Saturday and of course at night. And since we only have day passes, they won’t help us here. So I will try to get all three of us an overnight pass for the weekend if possible.
Turns out, I shouldn’t have bothered with making an appointment because just as I tell Janet about it and she starts looking at his calendar, the door to his office opens.