Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I bolt from my spot and charge at him with all of my strength.
I don’t think. I don’t calculate whether it’s possible to reach him in time. I don’t watch my feet. “Move!” I shout. “Behind you!” But he doesn’t hear me. I’m not a kid racing a friend; I’m a man racing against the slowly tipping tower of heavy wood that’s about to crush this entirely unaware guy—this happy day turning tragic, an innocent festival giving way to an unforgettable nightmare.
One second, I’m in the road.
The next, my body is against his, and the pair of us go flying.
One arm wraps around his body. The other cradles his head.
For all the force I put into pushing him out of harm’s way, he doesn’t even cry out in alarm. In this moment, the two of us are one—weightless, airborne. The whole town of Spruce around us, once lively and full of music, now swallowed away into silence as we float through the universe. His face hovers in front of mine, two shiny lenses reflecting nothing but sunlight. I see all of this in the split second that seems to stretch on forever, this second that we spend in the air together.
Then all the grace and beauty is lost the moment we crash to the ground—me on top, him below.
Not a second later, behind us, a cacophony of wooden frames, metal clangs, and shattering glass erupts.
He’s still in my arms. My hand somehow found the back of his head before we hit the ground, as if protecting him from the less-than-gentle meeting of the pavement we both just experienced.
I stay right where I am, covering him, for fear of any splinters of wood, glass, or metal flying at us from the crash.
My body shields the sunlight from his face at last.
Behind the lenses of his glasses, I see two soft, kind eyes.
Soft, kind, and terrified.
They stare up at me, as if still trying to catch up to what just happened—and to what almost happened.
Wait a minute. Those eyes. The cute glasses. His messy hair. An adorable look of timidity saturating his every expression.
Noah Reed.
At once I’m transported to our days at Spruce High. Each and every time I passed by him in the hallway—and neither of us said a word. Whenever I walked by the science lab and saw him inside wearing his cute white coat. That one year when we had the same homeroom teacher but didn’t once share a word to each other due to being on opposite ends of the classroom, all the desks and other people’s heads between us. Every long day that clambered by, still having not said a word to him, still not mustering up the courage.
Our story started long before we were estranged classmates. Once upon a time, we lived on the same street, and our parents were friends. We spent afternoons as begrudging playmates in one of our messy yards while the adults stayed inside and drank wine. Despite the fun time our parents assumed we were having, mostly all we did was sit around. I think I tried to initiate a game of catch once or twice, but he wasn’t into it. I was bored with him.
That changed when we became teenagers.
And I realized it wasn’t girls who held my attention.
That’s when I started seeing Noah Reed in a whole new light. I noticed his timid sweetness for the first time. His innocence. His cute face and kind, soft eyes. Even the way he’d sit in the cafeteria and gently open the sack lunch his mother packed him every day. Or how he would stand back quietly and let others go ahead of him in the snack bar line, even if it meant they might be out of what he wanted, even if no one ever thanked him or appreciated it.
But I was watching. I saw the kindness in his heart, even if no one else did. I can’t explain why, but I grew protective of Noah. I felt connected to him, even if I was the only one who knew it. Was it because of our parents’ friendship and our fleeting childhood moments? Maybe I saw him as a missed opportunity. A potential friend I’d let slip away. What would’ve happened had we hit it off better as kids? Would we be best friends by now?
Or more?
Someone that pure, he needed to be protected. I just knew the world was going to prove too harsh for him one day.
Of course, I could never have predicted this would be how we would reunite: me, throwing the poor guy to the ground like a wrestling opponent in broad daylight.
For a small town, you’d think we would have run into each other several times since graduating. But he’s been a ghost, hiding away, like a mystery. I could have believed he moved to Antarctica were I not staring down into his eyes right now.