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)
After school, I rode with Kyle to Bullseye so he could grab a poster board for his science project.
We walked inside the “red monstrosity,” as Hendrix liked to call it, then made our way to the craft aisle.
I drifted to the thread section, my fingertips trailing over the blues and purples.
Hendrix’s birthday was this weekend, and—aside from the last two years—I’d never not made him a bracelet. But now, I didn’t know whether I should.
Maybe it would be best to let that tradition die right along with our relationship. But then I imagined how I would feel if he ignored my birthday, and I felt like an asshole.
No, I wasn’t the asshole. He had killed Sid!
Huffing, I snatched a bundle of brown thread.
If I made one, it would be shit-brown.
Kyle chose his poster board and then followed me to the front where the birthday cards were. Cats in party hats, cows with balloons, dogs in wrapped boxes. Then my gaze landed on the card with a sloth on the front, my anger at him reigniting once more. I picked it up. Have a Sloth-tastic day! I was going to write beneath that line, “Because Sid fucking won’t.”
I shoved the card and matching envelope down the back of my shorts, pocketing the shit-stain brown thread, and walked out the door to wait for Kyle to pay for his poster board. Because Kyle was good, and his mom had some money.
* * *
As soon as I walked in the front door, I heard the notes of Hendrix’s guitar drift down the stairs.
I went to my room, kicked the door shut, and dropped the card and thread onto my dresser before noticing Sid sitting on the pillow. What the hell?
Tears welled in my eyes at the sight of the Frankenstein stitches holding his head to his little body.
I scooped up my beloved stuffed animal and took a seat on the edge of the bed. It was like reuniting with an old friend, the only one I’d had at times.
I regretted throwing him into the trash almost as soon as I’d done it, but Sid was a representation of Hendrix and me. At the time, I’d wanted to throw that away. The same way Hendrix had wanted to kill it.
Only he’d saved Sid, kept him this entire time, then stitched him back together when I knew he didn’t know how to sew. So, what did this mean?
I swept a hand over Sid’s fur before lovingly placing him back on the pillow, then opening my door.
Music poured from beneath Hendrix’s closed door as I crossed the hall.
The strum of the guitar stopped when I knocked. “Yeah?”
I pushed into his room, my gaze shifting from the tarp-covered ceiling to Hendrix reclining against his headboard. My heart stumbled at the sight of his tattooed, bare chest, the worn guitar resting across his lap. “You fixed Sid,” I choked.
I didn’t know why it meant so much. It was just a stuffed animal, but we both knew Sid was so much more. And I needed to know why he’d done it. Why he’d bothered to fix something that could have stayed broken.
“Tried to.” His gaze met mine, the hatred that I’d seen in his eyes more often than not lately now absent. “I shouldn’t have beheaded him.” His attention went back to the guitar, and a few more notes of that familiar song filled the room. “I’m sorry.”
I almost wished he wasn’t. I fought the part of me that desperately wanted us to be okay again, that needed us to be.
“I never told you thank you for saving this.” His fingers plucked over the strings, the tattoos and ratty bracelets shifting with each delicate stroke.
I dropped to the edge of the mattress. The tune flooding my mind with a hundred memories. Every kiss, every touch, every sweet word. Nights in the treehouse, in this room… We’d spent our entire lives together. How was a person supposed to really let that go?
His soft gaze met mine. “It means a lot.”
How did I get over that? Over him?
“You mean a lot,” I breathed, a quiet confession. One I shouldn’t have made.
His dark brows creased before the music cut off, and a ragged sigh left his lips. Silence fell between us, one where I felt every jolting beat in my chest. Hendrix tapped over the wood of his guitar.
“Then give me some fucking answers, Lola. Please.”
I couldn’t, but I had to give him something because we couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t be friends, couldn’t be nothing, couldn’t just be while we were in each other’s lives… But if there was one thing I knew, it was that I needed Hendrix in my life. That I owed him some kind of peace.
“I can try.” Half-truths and omissions.
“Did I do something to make you unhappy? Is that why you did it?”