Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Maybe she was right.
Maybe we weren’t ready to uncork this shit.
I turned away from the boiling water to face her. “Why’d you lie?” It was a question I’d wanted to ask for two years. One I’d lost sleep over. But she wouldn’t know that was what I was talking about right now.
She rested her ass against the edge of the table, fingering a loose thread on the hem of her shorts. “I was embarrassed.”
That got me in the stomach. I knew she was talking about the job, but damn if it couldn’t be the same excuse for her lying about her betrayal. And there went that emotional ping-pong…I turned back to the stove, stirring the pasta. Yeah. Not ready to unbottle this shit.
“When I came back to Dayton, I thought I’d work while I finished my last year of school. Maybe pay to go to beauty college and make enough to rent a house.” A disbelieving laugh left her lips. “I actually thought I might be able to get Gracie back.” She sniffed. “If I can’t hold my shit together, then maybe I don’t deserve to have her.”
There went that tight feeling in my chest. I stared at the bubbling water. Gracie was everything to her, and despite the emotional swamp of shit I was trying to swim through, I couldn’t ignore that.
I turned around and pulled her into my chest. “No one deserves her more than you.” And that was the truth.
Lola’s mom was a piece of work. She was the first person I ever saw OD. We were six. I called 9-1-1 while Lola had tried her best to do CPR, based on some crime movie we’d seen. From the time Gracie was born, Lola and I had pretty much taken care of her because her mom sure as hell couldn’t—wouldn’t.
Lola had done everything for her little sister.
“You’ll get her back,” I whispered, rubbing a hand over her back. “I promise.”
“What if I don’t?”
“You will. You’re the best thing that ever happened to her.” I rested my chin on the top of her head, and she buried her face in my chest, holding onto me like I was the only thing that would keep her from drowning.
“So are you.”
I used to be the best thing that ever happened to Lola, too. I still wanted to be.
Chapter 21
LOLA
I hadn’t seen Hendrix since last night. He wasn’t at school all day, and he wasn’t home when I got there that afternoon. I wasn’t his keeper, and he didn’t have to tell me what he was doing, but still… He couldn’t even send a text?
Well, screw him.
I took the opportunity to scout the house for his most recent Pop-Tart hiding spot. Five minutes into my search, I found them.
Under his bed. That was super original…
When I opened the box, I laughed at the sticky note taped to the inside flap–Hendrix’s chicken scratch noting the number of packages inside. It was childish, but I’d always loved our stupid little wars.
When we were ten, he had spent two whole weeks slipping a whoopie cushion on my seat every time I sat down at school. I got so mad at him that I finally threatened to tell everyone his middle name if he didn’t stop. Then there was my phase of putting his hand in warm water every time he fell asleep, just to try to make him pee the bed. Much to my disappointment, he never did.
We had a lifetime of history and friendship. Being “friends” with him had never been as hard as it was now, though.
I knew he wanted more, and it broke me not to give it to him. Often, I asked myself whether maybe, just maybe, the resentment I knew he had over my “cheating” might be bearable if it meant I got to have him. But I knew Hendrix, and sooner or later, it would eat him alive. We’d tiptoed around it, for the most part, ignored it, and as long as we remained friends and nothing more, we could keep doing so. And I could keep my secrets.
I took a foil pack, then tucked the box of his prized pastries back underneath the bed before I went downstairs to do my homework at the kitchen table.
The sunlight coming through the window faded. I glanced up from my English paper outline to the clock by the back door. It was past seven, and Hendrix still wasn’t home. Worry crept into my stomach. I didn’t want to be a mother hen, but…
I tossed my pen to the table, picked up my phone, and sent him a text.
* * *
Me: Hey. Are you dead?
* * *
SATAN: YES
* * *
SATAN: Put my body dust in a bottle and send it out to sea.
* * *
SATAN: Friend…
* * *
I rolled my eyes. Maybe he was with Wolf. Or at a girl’s house…The usual sense of sickness accompanied that thought.