Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Whatever.
That’s not important.
Important thing is that I warned him.
And not because of some stupid made-up rule but because I fucking hated how he was looking at her.
So yeah, I’m angry.
I’m so fucking angry that I can’t stop looking at my window every five seconds. Because the first thing that I see when I look out of it, is the carriage house.
I wonder if the window that I see when I do look out belongs to her.
I wonder what she must be doing right now. I wonder if she’s writing in her diary.
I wonder what is it about her.
She’s just a girl, Jesus. There are a million girls out there. A million.
Which means girls are expendable. They’re inconsequential. They don’t matter.
And they especially don’t matter when your best friend wants them too.
So here’s what I’m gonna do next: nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
I’m not letting a girl ruin our friendship.
It doesn’t matter how pure and pink and goddamn sweet she appears to be. It doesn’t matter how weirdly fascinated I am with her; my fascination will wear off.
She’s not worth it.
She’s not fucking worth my friendship with my best friend.
CHAPTER FOUR
Who: The Bubblegum
Where: The second-floor bedroom in the carriage house on the Davidson estate
When: 11:04 PM; four years ago, a week after Echo’s fourteenth birthday
Dear Holly,
He asked me out.
Today. At school.
He came up to me in the library for our regular tutoring session and just came out with it.
I’m going to be honest, I did have a feeling that he’s wanted to do this for some time now. Quite possibly ever since he asked me to tutor him to help him with his grades. The whole fact that he came to the library on our side of the school and asked me to tutor him even though I’m still in the eighth grade tipped me off a little bit.
But I was still shocked.
It’s not as if he has any shortage of interested girls at school. Being a soccer superstar and the team captain comes with many advantages, especially in Bardstown, the so-called soccer nation.
But ever since I started to tutor him, he always invites me to his games. And if I do end up going, he makes sure to look at me whenever he scores a goal.
So yeah, I knew.
But as I said, I’m shocked.
Or more like, I don’t know what to do.
Well, there are reasons to say no.
First and foremost, I’m only fourteen. I’m not even allowed to date yet. Second, even if my parents lift that restriction, they’re going to totally freak out when they find out who they’re lifting the restriction for.
We’re not really allowed to consort with our employers.
And even though the Waynes are not our employers, they’re still our employers’ friends.
They’re our employers’ best friends, aren’t they?
Which brings me to the most important reason to say no to Lucas: him.
The guy who hates me.
And there’s no doubt now that he hates me, right?
Not after a year.
Not after a year of him looking at me like I’m the lowest of low.
A bug beneath his black boots. That he wants to crush and wreck and ruin and destroy.
His servant girl.
All because my parents work for his parents.
Because I’m poor and he’s rich.
Because I’m the wrong crowd.
I still remember what he said about me that night, on my thirteenth birthday. I still remember how he looked at me, or rather how he didn’t look at me, because he didn’t think I was even worthy of that little courtesy.
Oh, and let’s not forget how in the beginning I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to actually be nice to him, tried to befriend him, and how he rejected — no, crushed — all my attempts, making me feel like an idiot for even entertaining the thought that a rich boy like him would ever consort with a servant girl like me. I thought he deserved my kindness because rumors can be false and exaggerated but he proved me wrong. He taught me that every rumor about him is true.
And ever since I started tutoring his best friend, his hatred for me has only grown.
Now, I can feel his eyes on me. His reddish-brown eyes boring into me, making my skin prickle every time we pass each other by in the school hallways. Or every time I go to the soccer games. Because like Lucas, he’s a soccer player too.
A rockstar soccer player.
Who, like Lucas, doesn’t have any shortage of interested girls either.
In fact, I saw them ogling him this afternoon. While he was running laps around the soccer field.
Shirtless.
Please, what a show-off.
And he is a show-off.
While Lucas is more level-headed and methodical — hence the captain, I suppose — he’s more reckless. He’s more spontaneous. He likes to play around on the field, do backflips or jumps and cartwheels during the game, just so girls will scream his name.