Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
She shrugged her shoulders and then agreed.
We lay down in the grass next to one another and didn’t talk for a while. Then Hailee began counting. “One… two… three…”
“Four, five, six.” I pointed toward the sky.
We got up to thirty-four before Hailee turned toward me. Her eyes didn’t look as sad, which made my eyes feel less sad, too.
“You punched Kevin for me,” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“You know what that means, right? It means we have to be friends now.” She turned back to stare at the sky and pointed up. “Thirty-five.”
“You already counted that star.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Didn’t!”
“Did!”
“Aiden!”
“What?”
“We’re friends now, so you have to agree with me sometimes. Like it or not, that’s what friends do.”
I grumbled and rolled my eyes, then pointed at the sky at the same star Hailee was pointing toward. “Thirty-five.”
3
Aiden
Twelve Years Old
* * *
I was famous.
Like, really famous.
Sure, some people probably thought that sounded dramatic, but what could I say? I was dramatic. And famous.
Did I mention how famous I’d become? Soon enough, I’d have a bodyguard following me around.
“Did you see the commercial?” I asked Hailee as we stood at the bus stop waiting to be picked up for school.
Recently, I landed my first acting commercial as a walking taco, and I was convinced that I was as famous as anyone could ever get at that point.
Hailee was grinning ear to ear, holding the straps of her backpack tightly. “My parents recorded it and played it repeatedly last night. You’re famous.”
I smirked and patted her two afro puffs. “If you want, I can give you my autograph later.”
“That’s okay. That would mean you would have to spell your name, and I know spelling isn’t your strong point. Or reading. I’m actually surprised you were able to read the script.”
“I had no lines in the commercial, so that made it easier.”
“That makes sense, actually.”
One thing about my best friend was that she was going to sass me. Yup, that was right. Over the past few years, the girl I grew up hating became my very best friend. We’d spent the past two years counting the stars between our two homes.
When we got to school, though, it was the opposite of that. Instead of people thinking I was some acting genius, they were mocking me, saying my dancing made it look like I was humping the bus in the commercial. They also called me the worst actor in the world.
By lunchtime, I found myself hiding in the custodial closet, crying my eyes out from embarrassment. It didn’t take long for Hailee to track me down. Even when I didn’t tell her where I was, she always kind of knew. I guessed that was what best friends were—people who knew where you’d be and showed up on your worst days.
She came into the closet and closed the door behind her. She didn’t talk to me for a while. She just sat beside me and let me cry. I’d be embarrassed to cry in front of most people, but whenever I did with Hailee, she didn’t say nothin’ about it. Plus, I’d seen her shed a fair number of tears.
After a while, she turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Do you know what my dad says about the critics when they talk about my mama’s baking?”
“What?” I murmured, using my sleeve to wipe my snotty nose.
“Fuck them,” she stated matter-of-factly.
My eyes widened. “You’re not supposed to say that word.”
“I didn’t say it. My dad said it,” she corrected as if that meant the words didn’t come from her own mouth.
“But you said it when you were saying that he said it!”
She shrugged, unbothered. “My dad also said words are just words. It’s how people use them that makes them good or bad. I wasn’t using it in a bad way. I was using it in the way to make you feel better.”
“Oh,” I muttered.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Did it work?”
“Did what work?”
“Do you feel better?”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “No.”
She frowned and scratched at her tight curly hair sitting high in two afro puffs. Sometimes, she complained because she didn’t have straight hair like the other girls in our class, but that was because she had the best hair. She kind of had the best of everything, from her smile and curly hair like her mom’s to her round nose and freckles like her dad. Hailee had the kind of looks that made it easy to look at her. Sometimes I’d find myself looking even when she didn’t know I’d been.
She sighed from the realization that I still didn’t feel better. “Well, do you want to know what my mama said?”
“Does it use the word fuck?”
She gasped. “You’re not supposed to say that word!”
“But you just said—!”
“Mama says that first people laugh at you ’cuz they don’t understand what you’re doing. Then later, they’ll be asking you how you did it, so you can’t be mad that people don’t get it yet. They’re just slow.”