Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Spotting the black marker on the tile below, I took one more stroke and flipped over, pushing off the wall and heading back the way I came.
I could say band and swim were an excuse to be out of the house. That my project in the park was something else I used to avoid going home. That all these activities were things I could do relatively alone without too many others, especially peers, interfering in my role.
The truth was, I liked showing people what I could do. To the town with the gazebo. To the few students and parents who had showed up to cheer us on at swim meets when I was on the team. To the whole school when I walked the football field and played the flute.
Every little thing you could do made you feel stronger. I have this, so I don’t need you. I have that, so I don’t need you.
Sometimes I was able to kid myself into believing that having this or being able to do that made me too busy and too important to possibly care about everything that I didn’t have and everything I’d never be.
Like a smiler.
Like friends.
Like having someone who loved to tickle me and kiss me all over my face, not just on my lips.
Nah. Being able to swim the hundred-meter freestyle in forty-eight seconds was really what life was all about. That made me happy. I didn’t need that other shit.
Charging toward the other end, I flipped, pushed, and headed back the other direction, deep in my rhythm now and the worries and stress burning away like fog in the sun.
I tilted my head, took a breath, and stuck my face back in the water, but just then there was another face looking straight up at me from the bottom.
I screamed, bubbles pouring out of my mouth like a goddamn geyser. What the hell?
I halted and scrambled to get my head above water.
But before I could get to the surface, something wrapped around my ankle and yanked me back down.
I screamed louder, my submerged cries muffled as I flailed.
Then, I inhaled. A gulp of water lodged in my throat, and I shot out my foot, kicking the prick so hard pain fired through my toe and straight up my leg.
Gasping and sputtering, I broke through the surface, coughing as I tried to escape.
But then…someone else took hold of me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, pulling me to him and holding me with one hand around my waist, and the other under my thigh. “Calm down.”
I coughed, only managing short, shallow breaths as my lungs cleared, and I wiped my eyes.
“Piss…” I choked out, blinking and seeing Will Grayson holding me. “Off.”
But I was coughing too hard to sound stern, and he just snorted, laughing.
I pushed away. “Get off me.”
“They’re just fucking around, Emmy.”
He let me go, and I looked over, seeing Michael and Kai waist deep in the pool and talking to Diana Forester, while Damon slammed his fist in the water and shot daggers at me with his eyes. Blood poured out of his left nostril as he reached onto the deck for a towel.
Asshole. I could’ve drowned.
A blonde came up behind Will, watching us before taking his hand. “I have to be home by ten,” she said. “Come spend time with me.”
His eyes stayed fixed on me. “You okay?”
I shot him a snarl as I walked for the edge.
“Then go home,” he ordered me, turning away.
I whipped around, still trying to catch my breath. “I was here first.”
He looked from the girl back to me, a smile playing in his eyes. “Suit yourself.”
Leaving her, he stalked toward me again, and I backed up until I hit the edge of the pool. He stopped and fiddled with something under the water.
In a moment, he leaned over and pulled the black mesh shorts he was wearing in the wrestling room out of the water and threw them over my head, onto the pool deck.
I stopped breathing.
Whistles and hoots echoed in the room, and I stared up into his eyes, the moments stretching to an eternity as he waited for me to do something, and I almost thought he wanted me to.
Instead, I turned around and grabbed the ladder.
But he took my arm and pulled me back, my body slamming into his chest.
I whipped around and shoved hard against his chest, but he barely moved.
Anger boiled in my gut. His hand was still wrapped around my arm, and for a moment, I almost let my eyes drop down to the water to see if he really was naked.
Raising my hand, I slammed it across his face again and shoved him in the chest, pushing him away. The girl was gone. I had no idea where.
“You grab me again, and I won’t care about the consequences,” I growled low.