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)
“I-I didn’t mean to… I didn’t…”
“Well, that’s great then, isn’t it? That you didn’t mean to.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m —”
“Do it.”
“What?”
He clenches his jaw for a second before growling, “Say yes.”
“W-what?” I repeat, my eyes wide and my breaths all fearful.
But apparently, it’s not enough for him.
He wants me even more afraid, even more shivery and shaky because he leans down, his eyes burning so bright that I feel harsh sun staring down at me. “Pick up your phone right the fuck now and tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
His nostrils flare as he grinds his teeth.
As he pushes himself to say the next words like he can’t bear to say them but he has to.
He needs to.
Because that’s why he came here.
“Tell him,” he says slowly, “that you’ll marry him.”
“No,” I blurt out.
And hate myself for it.
Even more than I did before he arrived here so abruptly and I was on the bed, pouring all my angst into my diary. I hate myself even more for saying no now, than I did when I’d said it to my boyfriend.
Who did come here to surprise me on my birthday.
He wasn’t supposed to be here, let alone take me out for a birthday dinner. He was supposed to be back in New York like he’s been for the past year, for college, practicing for an upcoming soccer game. But he left all that to come to me. He said that he didn’t want me to be alone, not today, not for my birthday.
And I was so happy to see him too.
But then I went and ruined everything.
I hurt him.
All because at the end of our meal, he asked me a question and produced a ring.
He said that even though we’re young, it feels right. It feels like forever. And this ring, even though it’s an engagement ring, doesn’t mean that we have to marry as soon as I turn eighteen. I could treat it as a promise ring and we could wait until I finished college, if I wanted to. But he couldn’t not give me a ring and propose because he could see our future so clearly.
Him being a pro-soccer player and me being his wife.
Unlike all the other times before — when he’d asked me out for the first time or told me that he loved me — I couldn’t see this coming. And to say that I freaked out is an understatement.
I freaked the fuck out.
I felt trapped. Suffocated.
I felt like someone was standing on my chest, not letting me breathe.
And so I ran.
I told him that I wanted to go back home. That I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t do this. And like the best boyfriend in the whole wide world, he did what I asked him to. He drove me back home and I’ve been shut up in my room ever since.
“No,” he repeats, softly.
“I-I can’t.”
“And why not?”
“I just…”
“You just what?”
“I-I can’t. I…”
“You what?”
“Because it’s too soon,” I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head.
Even though as soon as I say it, I know it’s a lie.
It’s not too soon.
It’s not why I said no. I said no because I was feeling trapped and I have a feeling I’d feel trapped even if he asked me this question years down the lane.
And oh my God, the hate that I feel for myself keeps growing.
Because why do I feel this way? Why do I feel trapped when I love Lucas so much?
“You’ve been dating him for two years,” his best friend snaps, his chest undulating on a sharp breath.
“I’m —”
“Two years that have felt like two fucking centuries.”
“What?”
“So which part of that is too goddamn fucking soon?”
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.”
All I know is that I can’t do it.
I can’t marry the boy I love for some reason. I can’t say yes to him and I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t understand how I could’ve done something like this to him.
How I could’ve hurt Lucas like this.
“Maybe I can enlighten you then,” he says, breaking into my confused thoughts.
He inches even closer, his body bending forward.
His broad shoulders dipping, his sculpted face looming over me as he rasps, “It’s hard, isn’t it?”
“What’s hard?”
“This whole long-distance shit,” he goes on, his eyes flicking over my face. “It’s hard for him. I can tell. The fact that he doesn’t get to see you as much, or as often as he’d like. He doesn’t get to see your pretty dresses, all nice and tight up top but fluttering and flying around your creamy thighs. Doesn’t get to see your thick long honey-colored braids, always bound with a ribbon, sometimes a hairclip with butterflies. Or the way you tilt your face up whenever there’s sun out, like you want to absorb every inch of the sunshine, and you do, don’t you? Because your fucking skin glows, somehow both pale and golden at the same time. Or that you always have a tiny smile whenever you open a book. Doesn’t matter which book, your mouth always tips up. And that you never fucking watch where you’re going and so he has to put his hand on you, grip your elbow or your tiny waist, your delicate shoulders, so he can steer you away from trouble. He can protect you because you don’t have the common fucking sense to do it yourself. He doesn’t get to do all that now and he hates it. He fucking hates that you’re not close. Where he can get to you whenever he wants, touch you, smell you,” he breathes in deep then as if smelling me, as if he’s the one who misses my scent, “or hear your voice. Your laugh.”