Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Did it surprise me? Not in the least. Milo was ridiculously good-looking. It was annoying how attractive he was. I had to hotwire my brain to disconnect from that fact after I realized I was his student teacher.
I want to sit on Milo Corti’s face was written on the stall.
I couldn’t blame the girl.
He made a nice seat.
Sometimes when I’d walk through the hallways, I’d notice the girls noticed him, but he never looked back. He seemed uninterested in the idea of anyone…except for me.
He and I would cross paths in the hallway, and his eyes would lock with mine. He refused to ever look away first, holding said stare until the nerves of it all overtook me. I’d break eye contact, but somehow, I could still feel the weight of his stare on me. I felt conflicted with it all, yet I never brought it up to him. I figured the less I talked about his stares, the better. Because it was clear he loved to push my buttons. When it came to him and his greenish-brown eyes, said buttons were easily pushed.
Though, over the past few days, he seemed a bit more distant than normal. During our sessions, he made fewer sarcastic remarks. A part of me wanted to question if he was all right. Another part understood it was none of my business.
CHAPTER 9
Milo
Every single day, I woke up to a world of darkness. Both figuratively and literally. Whenever I woke up, it took my eyes a second to adjust to the space around me. I had to blink away seconds of darkness before climbing out of bed. That had happened to me for as long as I could remember.
It didn’t help that I woke up before the sun was up. I’d been doing it for a year now. Before the crack of dawn, I headed out my front door and went down to the park not far from my house. Estes Park was Dad’s favorite park since he was a kid. It was where he and Mom first met. Within the park was a wooded area that led to the lakefront if you took a hidden path. Nobody really knew about it except my parents and me. Dad even bought a small bench for Mom with their initials carved into the wood that he set up there. It was Mom’s favorite place in the whole world. The three of us used to fish there for hours.
Now, only I showed up, and that winter, the lake was frozen over. I probably shouldn’t have even been out there with the freezing wind chills, but I swore I’d try to never miss a day standing in front of that lake every day, looking up at the sky.
Mom told me to find her in the sunrises, so I tried to make sure to catch every single one since she passed away, no matter the weather. Some days, the clouds blocked the sunrises, but I figured the sun was still there. I’d missed her extra that morning, and watching the sunrise didn’t seem enough for my comfort that day.
Starlet had worked as a nice distraction for a short period. She kept me from overthinking about the day right around the corner for a bit, yet once that day came, my mind couldn’t handle its pain.
It’d been a year since she’d been gone.
A year today.
Happy Death Day, Mother. Screw you for leaving me here on this planet.
Also, I miss you so much it’s hard to breathe.
I watched the sunrise, feeling empty inside, then I headed home and got ready for school.
Weston’s and my weekly meeting was the last place I wanted to find myself that Monday morning. The carpet was ripped out of his office, exposing an ugly hardwood floor that looked like shit. Weston told me his office renovations were in the in-between stages, stating that the new flooring wouldn’t be in until the following week.
The floors looked like how I felt—like shit.
Weston sipped his coffee as he eyed me up and down. Truth be told, I didn’t even know how I’d managed to make it into his office that morning. I hadn’t slept all weekend. Mainly because whenever I shut my eyes, I’d be haunted by the memories of my past. And when that wasn’t happening, I was haunted by the situation of my present day.
“Are you high right now?” Weston asked.
I glanced up from my chair and arched an eyebrow. “Who’s asking? Weston or the principal?”
“Both,” Weston stated, setting his coffee mug back down on the table.
“Well, I think you know the answer, seeing as how you’re asking.”
“It’s seven in the morning, Milo.”
“It’s called wake and bake,” I replied.
Weston shouldn’t have been surprised. It was a crap weekend. Dad went on a drinking binge and decided to take it out on me when he came home smelling like a piss-covered sailor. Spending my weekend dealing with a drunk, grieving man who I had to force into the shower and feed wasn’t my idea of fun. On top of me taking care of him, I had to deal with hearing how much of a disappointment I’d been. Then that morning marked a year since Mom’s passing. So forgive me if I got high before school to try to deal with the shit going on in my head.