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)
I slightly shook my head. “What’s in my eyes?”
“Every ounce of sadness you’ve ever lived. It seeps out of you, Weeping Willow,” he remarked sarcastically. Or maybe he wasn’t being sarcastic. Maybe he saw the truth behind my life of pretending.
That left me uneasy.
I didn’t want to be perceived in such a way. I didn’t want others to know that parts of me were so heartbreakingly broken. I didn’t want them to see the nightmares that kept me up some nights.
I wanted to be happy.
I wanted others to think I was happy.
I had to lie to myself and the world because if I didn’t…if I didn’t stop spinning and pretending and living in a false reality, then my feet would touch solid ground, and I’d shatter into a million pieces.
Theo was right.
I was fake.
But it was only due to me trying my best for the past years not to drown.
Yet when I stood there, staring into his blue eyes, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. Hatred.
I hated Theo Langford because he saw me when he wasn’t supposed to.
I hated him for calling me out, for pointing out my truths that I’d worked for years to keep hidden.
I hated him for seeing me.
The real me.
The damaged me.
An odd feeling began to bubble up in my gut as I stared into Theo’s cold eyes. A feeling that I wasn’t certain how to keep contained. A new, raw feeling. I think it was…rage.
“Fuck you, Theodore Langford!” I hollered, my voice cracking as the aggressive words flung from my tongue. I quickly covered my mouth and gasped to myself. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” he said, standing taller with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “Now say it with your chest. Call me whatever you want to call me. Don’t be timid, Weeping Willow.”
“Don’t call me Weeping Willow, you freaking dick!” I barked. My chest heaved as my irritation built more and more. And what did this giant man hovering over me do in that very moment as rage was all I felt within me?
He smiled.
He smiled!
Out of all the times we’d crossed one another…out of all the situations when Theo could’ve smiled my way…he waited until I was on the brink of annoyance to give me one of his grins. He only smiled during fish talk and when he hurt my feelings.
What. An. Asshole.
With a freaking fantastic smile.
I much more preferred his smiles when he gave them because he caught a big fish, not when he was mocking me. His mocking smile pissed me off so much. He should’ve been running around with the ugliest of ugly grins plastered on his face. But no. His smile held so much beauty and charm with pearly white teeth and a dimple on each of his cheeks.
I wanted to slug him right in the face for having such a great grin.
“Don’t smile! Why are you smiling?!” I snapped.
“Don’t know. Maybe because, for the first time, you now feel real to me.” He turned on his heels and started for the back door. “And don’t worry, Weeping Willow. I accept your apology.”
“I take it back! I take back my apology, you freaking jerk!” I shouted.
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled again. Effing A. It was an even more attractive smile than before. The guy smiled so big that I swore I could see his wisdom teeth, which he probably should’ve had taken out ages ago. I bet he was a freaking dental hygienist’s nightmare.
“No take backs, Weeping Willow,” he said.
“Stop calling me that, Mr. Grump!”
He walked outside with a chuckle and a headshake, leaving me standing there like a freaking weeping willow.
Did he just laugh?!
Three days had passed since Theo laughed at me. I was still licking my wounds from the whole interaction. I wanted to complain to Molly about it all, but I figured telling her that her grandson was a massive dick wasn’t the politest thing I could’ve done.
The only thing I could think to do during my days of simmering rage was try again and again to make sourdough. Maybe I couldn’t make Theo like me—not that I wanted him to because screw him and his annoying, non-ugly face—but I could try to make a perfect sourdough.
And tried, I did.
When I pulled out my third loaf in three days that was hard as a stone, I sighed.
And right on time, Theo walked in to see the ugliest thing I’d ever baked.
He snickered and shook his head before walking out the back door toward his boat.
His laughing at me made it even worse.
I held the rock-hard loaf in the air as I followed him outside. He was already halfway to his boat. “I meant to make it like this!” I shouted.
He didn’t look back but continued laughing, shaking his head as he reached his boat.