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)
“That’s true. I guess we’ll have to spread them around Chicago.”
“That’s a really responsible thing to do.”
I pushed myself up slightly and locked eyes with him. “Will your dad be okay? Are you sure you don’t want to spend the day with him?”
Milo shrugged. “We don’t really do that.”
“But maybe—”
“We don’t do that, Star.” He cut in, signaling that I was crossing a line. I didn’t bring up the topic again. Clearly, his relationship with his father was complicated, and it wasn’t my place to add my input. My only job was to make sure Milo was doing all right, and if that meant playing hooky, then we’d do that.
I convinced him to bring his cane to Chicago.
He’d been so self-conscious about it that I figured trying to use it in a different city might help him. It was clear that he didn’t need the cane as much as he might in the future, but I figured any practice would be helpful.
The moment we stepped off the train, we shut off our phones. I’d never had a day when I completely disconnected from the world, and I was looking forward to it more than I thought possible.
The streets of Chicago were busy with traffic and pedestrians moving around in a hurry. Tourists surrounded one of the biggest attraction sights—the Bean or as it was officially known as, Cloud Gate.
“This was going to be one of the stops on my imaginary road trip,” Milo mentioned, snapping photos of me in front of the Bean. I smiled widely, posing on one leg as he snapped away.
“You’ve made up actual stops?” I asked.
“No. Just a few random stops I wanted to see across the states. I’m shocked I’ve never been here, actually, seeing how it’s so close.”
“You know what we should do? Make up a road trip map together and mark down all the spots we want to see. I have so many places I’d love to go hiking at.”
“And I want to see the burger family!”
I narrowed my eyes. “The burger family?”
“You don’t know about the burger family?”
“Should I?”
“They are the A&W Burger Family statues. They are spread across the states, but I know the ones I want to see are Hillsboro, Oregon.”
I laughed. “You want to travel to see hamburger statues?
“It’s a family of burger people, Star. A family!” he exclaimed, smiling wide. I loved when he slipped into that version of himself—full of joy and light. It looked so good on him. “We need to find a place for lunch and discuss all the places we’d plan to go on for this road trip,” he said.
“I could use some food.”
“Deep-dish pizza?”
“Do you know most people from Chicago don’t eat deep-dish pizza? Down here, we do more of a thin crust style.”
“Lucky for me, I’m a tourist. So again, deep-dish pizza?”
Deep-dish pizza it was.
The rest of our time together felt free. We’d laughed more than we ever had and kissed in public places with no worries about who might see us. By the time we headed back to the train station, I was already dreading not being able to hold him the way I had that day. I was dreading not touching him in the hallways of school. I knew summer was only a few months away, but honestly, it felt like centuries when you were falling in love.
When we made it back to downtown Milwaukee, we finally took out our cell phones and turned them back on.
“It was kind of nice to be unplugged from the world,” I mentioned as we walked out of the train station and began to cross the street to where I parked my car for the day. Milo’s footsteps froze in the middle of the road as he stared at his phone. Cars were coming his way, and I yanked his arm, tugging him to the curbside before he could get hit.
“What are you doing? You almost died,” I said, confused by his sudden unawareness.
He was still looking down at his phone with knitted brows.
“Milo? What is it?”
His shoulders slumped forward as his body held a slight tremble.
“Milo?” I questioned.
He didn’t look at me.
His trembles intensified.
“Milo. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s my dad.” When his head rose, his eyes were flooded with tears.
True alarm and concern shot straight into my heart. “What happened?”
“There was a car accident. Weston has been trying to reach me. He said it’s bad, and well…shit...” His voice cracked as he shook his head. “I need to get to the hospital. I need to get to the hospital. I have to, I have to, uh…” His words faded away as he began to crumple.
“Which hospital? I’ll take you. Let’s go.”
He muttered the hospital's name, and I quickly pulled up directions on my phone. When we arrived, I went to get out of the car, but he stopped me. “You can’t come up. Weston is here, so you can’t walk in with me.”