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)
That he wouldn’t let me.
That he would keep me here longer, torture me with further time behind bars.
But guess what, I’m taking back my control. At least, some of it.
I’m sneaking out from under his very nose.
And not just Friday night either, nope.
Tonight as well.
Because graduation and my friends aren’t the only thing he’s taken away from me, has he?
He’s taken away something else too.
Someone else.
He’s taken away the love of my life.
In the beginning, there were tears.
Lots and lots of tears.
Tears shed in the pillows. Tears shed under the blanket, in the shower, in between classes. In a quiet corner of the library. In the third floor bathroom that’s always out of order, hence empty and a perfect spot for crying.
For the first few weeks when I was sent here, to St. Mary’s, all I did was hide out and cry.
But then things changed.
Because Callie found me, befriended me, and the rest is history.
You know, I always say that Callie, and then later Wyn and Salem, saved me from going crazy in this reform school. But they saved me from so much more.
They saved me from heartache.
Because when I was sent here, I wasn’t only angry for being banished, I was also heartbroken.
I was also heartsick and devastated.
Over my broken love story.
Yeah, before I was sent here I was in love with a boy.
That’s actually the whole reason why I was sent here.
Out of all the reasons that could have had me banished, falling in love was the one that got me in the end. And trust me when I say that there were plenty of other reasons. Plenty.
Because while I was living under his roof, I did everything that I could to make good on the promise that I’d made to him that night in the rain. Of making his life hell.
I actually had a whole routine back then.
School and boring classes; shooting the shit with Mo; exploring the vast grounds surrounding the mansion; doing things and playing pranks to mess with him.
After a while, I have to admit that I started to… enjoy living in that mansion.
I started to enjoy Middlemarch and how peaceful it was. Except for the times when I disturbed the peace myself. I started to warm up to my routine.
And the biggest reason for it was Jimmy.
Jimothy Wilson.
He had blue eyes and blond hair, and a voice that made me forget my own name.
His voice was the reason we met actually.
I followed it one day, on a crisp spring morning in April, into the woods behind the mansion. And found him sitting on a log, his blond head bent and his muscular arms cradling a guitar. He was playing and humming a tune, and I couldn’t look away. I stared at him and stared at him until he realized that someone was watching him.
He looked up.
He saw me with his blue eyes.
And he smiled.
I remember that vividly. His soft, curious smile.
Because that was the instant I fell.
In love I mean.
We spent that whole morning talking and laughing. I found out that his name was Jimothy but people called him Jimmy. He was seventeen years old, had left school his sophomore year, and that this spot in the woods was his favorite. He loved coming here in the mornings to be by himself and with nature. And practice his music.
Because Jimmy was a musician. He was a poet too.
He was the lead singer and the lyricist of his band, and he wanted to make it big.
I knew he would because he was phenomenal, and every day since then, he’d shown up in the mornings before school, and we’d meet at the same spot. We’d talk; I told him everything about Charlie and New York and the life that I’d left behind. And we’d laugh and he’d sing me a song that he’d written. I’d even sneak out at night to go see him and his shows with his band.
By the time summer arrived, I was so enchanted by him that I was ready to tell him.
I was ready to tell him that I loved him.
That he was the only boy that I’d ever loved and that he made everything okay. He made living in that new mansion okay. His warm blue eyes made it easier for me to bear his dark, cold ones. His affection made it easier to bear his hate.
And I even made a whole plan to tell him. I plotted everything down to a T. It was all going to be perfect.
If not for him.
My devil guardian.
If not for his sudden, abrupt decision to uproot my life again, and send me away.
After months of trying to convince him, prank him, force him to let me go, he was letting me go. He was sending me away. Only he wasn’t sending me back to New York but to a reform school.