Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Me! You stay for me!” Panic infiltrated her words, and it took herculean strength to steady my emotions.
“You’re not staying here. You’re going off to college.”
“Then you come with me. We talked about this so many times. I’m tired of our stupid hidden relationship. Part of me was relieved that time your mom caught us. I just wanted to have a normal relationship with you. This stupid facade is about to end. We tell my parents, and we don’t give a fuck what they think. You don’t need my dad’s approval anymore. We don’t need anyone’s approval.”
“It’s not about approval, Josie. It’s about our future. But we don’t have a future right now. There’s your future, and there’s my future. One of us will have to sacrifice for the other, and that’s ridiculous. We’re too young to make rash decisions because of some…” I searched for the best word, but the only one that came to mind was her dad’s word “…infatuation. Maybe we’ve felt a bond because of close proximity or simply lack of a better choice. That doesn’t mean it’s …” I sighed and lowered my voice, choking back my emotions and calming my frustration. “That doesn’t mean it’s love.”
Tears filled her eyes. I’d only seen Josie cry a handful of times, and it usually involved a physical pain like falling out of a tree or cutting open her knee. She bit her quivering lower lip and wiped her tears the second they fell to her red cheeks. “Y-you don’t l-love me?”
Yes. God … I loved her more than any other human being. I loved her more than myself. I loved her more than God even if that was a sin. I loved her so much that I had to let her go. And that meant I had to lie to her. That hurt more than any physical pain I had ever experienced. “I care about you. You’re my best friend.”
Josie stopped wiping her tears; there were too many. Instead, she took off running.
Let her go. Just … let her go.
I couldn’t let her go. Not like that. If I couldn’t tell her the truth, I wanted to tell her a truth. I let her run for a while, keeping a safe distance behind her. With each step, I imagined one day we’d find each other again, and the timing would be right. She would be a doctor, saving lives. And I would be something infinitely better than I was in that moment. I would be a man who didn’t need to please a police chief or wreck my life to spite my father.
The more distance we covered, the more those words solidified in my mind. I would let her go to be that better man. Just … not yet.
When she reached the batting cages, she continued to run to the field where we used to race each other, the field where we believed bad people lived, waiting to kidnap us. Josie stopped, bent over, and rested her hands on her legs while she gasped for air. Her shoulders shook, and her deep breaths morphed into howling sobs while she dropped to her knees, her body folding onto itself.
I kneeled in front of her and pulled her to me.
“No!” Her arms flailed as she tried to keep me from holding her.
I hugged her arms to her body and all of her to me. She wriggled and wriggled while crying more than I had ever seen her cry … more than I had ever seen anyone cry. After a while, she stopped fighting me, and her sobs subsided into tiny hiccups while her hands fisted my shirt.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Gritting my teeth, I swallowed hard. Tears burned my eyes, but I couldn’t set a single one free.
“It-it’s us, C-Colten. It’s a-always been u-us …”
I kissed the top of her head. Said nothing. Felt everything.
“Tell me you l-love me.”
I love you.
Tightening her grip on my shirt, she pounded my chest and glanced up at me with sad, red eyes. “Tell me,” she croaked out the words.
I gritted my teeth harder and refused to blink.
She released my shirt and grabbed my face, moving to her knees again and kissing me with a punishing intensity. I kissed her back, memorizing the taste of her mouth, the feel of her tongue against mine, her soft hands on my whiskery face, the rise and fall of her chest brushing mine.
Did she know how many times I wanted to leave the world? Leave the pressure of my dad’s expectations, the embarrassing shadow of his indiscretions, the cloud of depression that hung over our house for years. Did she know she was the reason I kept going? The promise of us?
I lived wholly, eternally, unequivocally for Josephine Watts.
Why didn’t I tell her when it mattered the most?