Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 93312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
But leaving Whittemore also meant leaving Thayer, and leaving Thayer was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
I reconnected with my friends from middle school and finished out my junior year in Shadow Ridge while my mom worked constantly, taking as many flights as possible to make ends meet. She slowed down when she was with August, but she never completely quit, despite his insistence. Now I know why. She didn’t want to be dependent on him. It makes me wonder if deep down, she knew she’d need a safety net one day. I was proud of her for it, but I’d never felt more alone. I didn’t have her, I didn’t have Grey, and I didn’t have Thayer. I still had Valen. Our friendship was solid, and the hour drive did nothing to weaken that. And, of course, I had other friends, but it wasn’t the same.
I spent the summer working at the country club to help make ends meet, even though my mom insisted that we were fine. I thought maybe if I could bring in some extra cash, she wouldn’t have to leave so often. And just when I was finally getting used to my new normal, resigned to the fact that I’d probably never see Thayer again, fate had other plans. My grandmother passed away, and despite their vast differences, she shocked us all by leaving her house on Heartbreak Hill to my mom. It wasn’t until we moved in over the summer and saw the state of things that my mom realized it was my grandmother’s last fuck you. Turns out, Amelia Courtland was a bit of a hoarder in her old age. The downstairs was in decent condition, but upstairs? Upstairs was in shambles. We’re still nowhere near finished, but it’s livable and better than our place in Shadow Ridge. Not to mention paid off.
“It’s going to be fine,” Valen reassures me for the thirty-seventh time in as many minutes as I stand here hesitating before the imposing red-bricked building. Sawyer Point has a reputation for scary, haunted, and historic buildings. But not one of them is as intimidating as the one I stand before, and not for reasons of the paranormal variety. Ghosts have nothing on the rich and beautiful teenagers of Sawyer Point High School. I haven’t faced any of these people in nine months. I know the second I walk through those doors, the whispers will start.
As if that’s anything new.
“I know,” I say, shrugging, aiming for casual when I’m feeling anything but.
“No one’s even talking about you guys anymore since Bryce Anderson knocked up Melissa Matthews over the summer,” Valen says when I still don’t make a move. She produces a lip gloss from the tiny pocket of her equally tiny skirt before she drags the wand across her full lips. Valentina Solorio looks more like an Instagram model than a high school student with her olive skin, the perfect number of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and the dimples in her cheeks. Her thick dark hair is rolled into twin buns on the top of her head, leaving two strands hanging in the front. If I tried to pull off that hairstyle, I’d end up looking like an actual alien. But Valen manages to make everything look hot. Her style is what can only be described as rich-girl grunge. Feminine with a little edge. Meanwhile, I’m looking decidedly less hot in my cut-off black denim shorts, cropped grey sweatshirt, and Chucks. We’re complete opposites, but she’s my best friend, and the only one who stuck around when everyone else turned their backs on me.
I raise my eyebrows, pinning her with a look. Everyone wants to know what happened to make Thayer and Holden drop me. Myself included.
“Okay, fine. These losers are still talking about it,” Valen says. “But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s senior year, and you’re Shayne fucking Courtland.”
I shake my head, but a small smile tugs at my lips. My name means absolutely nothing. In fact, it’s more of a scarlet letter than a badge of honor these days, much to my late grandmother’s dismay. My mom grew up here, and apparently, she wasn’t exactly the perfect little debutante they expected her to be. I’m not sure of the details, but after a falling-out with her parents, she moved away at a young age. Both Grey and I were born out of wedlock, which apparently was still frowned upon here like it’s 1952. Our father left when I was too young to remember, and all I have left is a single, faded picture.
When my mom returned to Sawyer Point to visit her parents for the first time in over fifteen years, she managed to snag August Ames, CEO of AmesAir, without so much as batting an eye. That made her the talk of the town, and when she dragged my brother and me to live at Whittemore, it made me the shiny new toy at Sawyer Point High. Rumors weren’t exactly a novel concept for me. I didn’t expect it to last more than six months with her track record, but she stuck around for two whole miraculous years. Sometimes, I wonder if she would have stayed with August for good, if not for Danny’s accident.