Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Noah: That offer to make out in the back of my car still stands.
Zoey: Who’s this?
I shake my head, a shit-eating grin tearing across my lips as something squeezes inside my chest.
Noah: You know damn well who it is.
Zoey: Ahhhhh, the resident asshole. How could I have missed that?
Noah: You better not be changing my name to that in your phone.
Zoey: Too late!
Noah: So…back of my car?
Zoey: You need to work on your pick-up game. This is terrible! It’s a mystery how you have so many girls desperate for your attention.
Noah: A mystery? Have you seen my face? I’m fucking gorgeous.
Zoey: *Poop emoji*
I laugh as I slip my phone back into my pocket, knowing she has to have the last word. Otherwise, we’ll end up going back and forth until our phones die, and I’m not above sitting by my charger. Actually, neither is she.
My hand hovers at my bedroom door when I find myself turning around and taking the few steps back to the one door I haven’t pushed through in three years.
Linc’s bedroom.
Nerves settle within me. I don’t know what Mom has done in here. She may have emptied it out already, or I might be about to walk into a time capsule that makes me feel as though he’s still here. For three years, I’ve avoided this room as if it stopped existing at the same moment that Linc did. I’ve never found the strength to open the door and walk in, but over these past few weeks, especially after sitting with Zoey outside Mrs. Thompson’s office today, something clicked into place.
I don’t want to grieve for him anymore. I want to celebrate him.
I still feel an overwhelming amount of guilt for Linc’s death, and despite how Zoey feels about it, I will always shoulder the blame for what happened that day. I was his older brother. He was my responsibility, and in my own selfishness, I sent him away. That will always remain my greatest regret. Yet, Zoey’s faith in me and her ability to see who I am through the darkness has somehow managed to breathe life back into me. For the first time in so long, I feel as though I’m ready to face everything that happened that day and accept it for what it was—a tragic accident.
Sucking in a deep breath, I curl my fingers around the cool handle, and as I exhale, my hands shake. I slowly nudge the door open, and my eyes timidly shift around the room.
It’s so unbelievably Linc.
Everything is right where it was. His clothes. His messy desk. His empty glass sitting on his bedside table. And instead of feeling that crushing agony I always assumed would come, I feel peace. Happy almost.
I smell him in here, even after three years. I feel his presence, the good times and the bad. The divots in the wall from when our play flighting turned a little too serious. I can still see us racing in here, Linc screaming as I barreled in behind him, intent on whooping his ass after he talked shit about Zoey for the first and only time. He sure as fuck learned that lesson quickly.
Making my way deeper into his room, I scan over the crap on his desk, the things he’d been scrawling into his notebook. He was a bit of an artist, but not the good kind. He liked street art and was just shy of stealing a few cans of spray paint and tagging his name across the living room wall. He didn’t have the balls to actually graffiti a wall outside of our home, but I don’t doubt that it was coming. He would have taken Hazel to be his lookout, and the two of them would have thought it was great.
Among all the chaos of his desk, I see a photo half hidden under the notebook, and I pull it out to see the four of us. Me, Zoey, Linc, and Hazel. It must have been taken maybe six months before he died, and seeing the cheesy grin on his face now has a matching one spreading across mine.
I’ve gone out of my way not to look at photos of him, but seeing his face now . . . fuck.
I fall back onto his bed, clutching the photo like a lifeline as I sit at the end, my gaze locked on his face. God, I miss him so much. The hell we would have raised together, with Zoey and Hazel too. The four of us would have been the best kind of trouble. Then I never would have pushed her away, and things never would have had to change.
I hear someone at the door and glance up to find Mom leaning against Linc’s doorframe, looking in and watching me as though I’m about to break. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here since—”