Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“What do you want, Willow?” he growled, seemingly growing upset with the wordiness of my speech.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, my cheeks heating from nerves. “For speaking for you the other day.”
He paused for a moment and then pushed out a slow breath. “You were at my grandmother’s.”
“Yes, for a little bit.”
“She talks too much.”
“She talks just enough.” I took a step toward him. “I really am sorry, though, Theo. In an attempt to make things better, I made them worse, and for that, I apologize.”
He tilted his head up toward me as he sat in his recliner, then pushed himself up to a standing position. “All right.”
He brushed against my shoulder and started in the direction of the kitchen.
“That’s it?” I called out, following his footsteps. He opened the fridge and bent down to grab something. I hovered over him. “That’s all? Don’t you want to talk about it more?”
He fully stood and went back to being the one who hovered over me. “What’s there to talk about?”
“Uh, the whole situation.”
“Why? You apologized. It’s over.”
“But what about your feelings?” I cried out, hoping he’d give me a little more space to open a realm of communication where we could no longer misunderstand one another. I just wanted to know what Theo’s heart was like and what made it beat.
He stared at me as if I were a crazed person who grew three heads. “Not everyone has to feel everything, Willow.”
“I’m not saying you have to feel everything. I’m just stating you have to feel something.”
“What makes you think I feel nothing?”
“Well, come on, Theodo—Just Theo. You don’t present yourself as a person who feels much of anything.”
“That’s just your opinion, and I learned a long time ago that I don’t give a shit about others’ opinions.”
“And why’s that?”
“People are flaky. They shift their thoughts as quickly as the wind redirects.” He snatched a six-pack of beers out of the fridge before closing it, then started for the back door to head toward his boat.
I trailed after him. “Theo, wait!”
He released a deep growl and turned to face me. “What?!” he spat out, annoyance dripping from every fiber of his being. “Don’t you get it, Willow? I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to get to know you. I don’t want to do this,” he said, gesturing between us. “All I want to do is go sit on my fucking boat and be left alone! I get that everyone else tends to love this overly bubbly fake persona that you’re putting into the world, but it simply annoys the living shit out of me. So how about we don’t do this back-and-forth thing anymore, all right? I’m not interested in your silly banter games.”
“Fake persona?” I questioned, somewhat stung by his word choice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I didn’t understand his cold, distant personality. I came to apologize. I came to try to shift our connection more toward a friendly one instead of our normally oddly tense experience with one another. Yet now he was attacking my character, which made me feel…sad. And misunderstood.
“It means exactly what you’d think it would mean. You’re fake.”
“No, I’m not!” I barked at him. “There’s nothing fake about me.”
“Everything’s fake about you,” he argued.
“Explain how.”
“For starters, you get along with everyone.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And that makes me fake?”
“Yes. No one likes everyone. It means you’re morphing into whatever it is that you think each person will like. Also known as being fake. And everyone in this godforsaken town seems to like you, too. Which means you’re not being real.”
“You don’t like me!” she said, pointing a stern finger my way. “And if I’m honest, you’re making it very hard for me to like you, too.”
“Well, I’ll be.” He snickered, but it wasn’t from amusement. It was a mocking type of laughter. “The first real moment of your life, I assume.”
“Screw you, Theo!”
“There you go, slugger. Let the real you seep out.”
“Why do you want me to be this awful person so bad? Why do you want me to be something I’m not?”
He stepped toward me, his big, broad body making me feel tiny as I tried my hardest to keep my chest puffed out to make myself look as big as I could next to his gigantic self.
“I don’t want you to be an awful person, Willow,” he hissed, stepping closer. His voice dropped an octave, and he locked his piercing eyes with my stare. “I just want you to stop pretending that you’re as happy as you are. Because you aren’t.”
“Then what am I?”
“Sad,” he confidently said.
“Sad?” I huffed. “I’m not sad.”
“Yes, Willow. You are.”
“How dare you assume—”
“It’s in your eyes,” he interrupted. This time, his tone wasn’t as harsh, though. It was gentler. Quieter. A whisper of truths that grazed against my ears.