Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
I blinked, unable to fathom the venom this man was spitting toward his own son. I forgot for a moment that I’d wished this kind of treatment and more against Brody Adams. Not that he was really the main instigator of the shit the football team called me—his buddy Sam Norton was—but he laughed just like the rest of them. He embodied everything that was wrong with this place. Maybe it burned a little more to have him join in on the taunts because I’d always had a little bit of a crush on Brody. That was until he and his buddies coined the term ‘Weirdo Watson.’
“Dad—”
Slap.
The sound seemed to echo through the football field. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle my gasp at Dr. Adams slapping his son with an open palm.
“Don’t talk back to me,” he hissed, grabbing Brody by the collar of his shirt then tugging him upward. “Don’t come home tonight until you’ve run twenty more laps. I can’t stand the sight of you.” He let go of his son who slumped back down onto the bleacher.
“Yes, sir,” Brody said, eyes downward.
Dr. Adams gave him one last look of distaste before walking away, luckily in the opposite direction of my hiding spot.
I didn’t know what possessed me to do what I did next. Temporary insanity? A rogue wave of empathy I got from my mother? My father’s voice in my head, telling me to do the right thing, maybe.
But instead of walking away and forgetting I saw anything, I walked toward Brody, still slumped over his knees. Wordlessly, I sat beside him.
He jerked up, obviously not noticing me walk up.
He rubbed his red eyes quickly, trying to wipe away tears.
I looked toward the football field so he didn’t have to feel like I was watching him. “Your dad’s a dick,” I said after a few beats.
His head turned in my direction, but I still didn’t look at him. I was holding my breath, waiting for him to tell ‘Weirdo Watson’ to fuck off, get away from him, put me back at my spot at the bottom of the high school totem pole.
“Yeah, he is,” he agreed instead.
I turned to look at him. He had a sheepish, embarrassed and sad look on his face.
“He’s wrong, you know,” I told him, meeting his eyes. “About your mother being disappointed in you. I didn’t know her, but my mom did. And my mom speaks really highly of her. The kind of person I reckon she was is the kind of person who would only ever be proud of her son, and the only disappointment she’d feel is that she left you to deal with him alone.”
I nodded in the direction his father had gone. And then, without thinking, I reached out to squeeze his hand.
Brody jerked at the contact, and I immediately regretted it, trying to pull my hand away. But he tightened his hand around mine before I could.
He looked at me with soft eyes, with none of that boyish arrogance I’d seen in the halls. He looked much younger. Much more fragile. The corner of his lip turned up in a sad smile, then he opened his mouth to say something.
“What is going on here, huh?”
I jumped at the voice, and Brody yanked back his hand as Sam Norton and a few more boys from the football team sauntered over.
“Weirdo Watson bothering you, bro?” Sam sneered.
Brody chuckled. “No, she’s just trying her luck.” He stood, putting his back to me. “Can’t blame a girl for trying. Even though she’s way out of her league.”
My face flamed as the rest of the boys laughed too.
“In what fuckin’ world would Brody want anywhere near you?” Sam taunted, eyes burning with cruelty.
I stood, gathering my bag but fumbling in my haste, letting my books fall. Brody glanced behind him but didn’t move to help me, to show me any kindness.
“Let’s go,” he said to Sam. “We’ll leave her to her books.”
“Yeah, and leave Adams alone, Weirdo,” Sam snarled.
“Leave Adams alone,” a few of the boys chanted.
I heard them giving him shit as they all walked away. Brody didn’t look back at me. Not once.
That was not the end of that, though. By the next day, word had gotten around about me ‘coming onto’ Brody. I became the laughingstock of the school. It was unyielding, the teasing, the taunting … right up until graduation when I got the fuck out of Dodge.
I promised myself I’d never put myself in a position to be hurt by Brody Adams again.
Chapter Five
WILLOW
It pretty much cemented my failure, standing behind the counter of my mother’s store, serving customer after customer. In high school, I’d worked here too, another thing to tease me about, people calling me ‘Hermione’ and not as the compliment in which I chose to take it. Hermione carried those boys, if you asked me.