Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 627(@200wpm)___ 502(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 627(@200wpm)___ 502(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
That’s dangerous enough, sadly.
Tessa gives voice to my initial impression of the other students wandering the sidewalks. “It’s like Halloween with all these costumes.”
Yes, and some people took the theme seriously. There’s a guy walking around in a crazy outfit that I know has something to do with a sci-fi movie, but they’ve never been my cup of tea, so I can’t put my finger on it.
“Predator,” Tessa says before calling out to him. “Super detailed. Way to commit.” She gives him a thumbs-up, which he returns.
For the most part, though, everybody seems to have used this as an opportunity to wear as little as possible. There’s a lot of skin showing, at least when it comes to the girls.
“And you thought my dress was short?” I whisper to Tessa, whose eyes widen when three girls saunter our way dressed in ass-skimming, sheer nighties and fuzzy mule slippers.
“We almost look overdressed,” she frets, chewing her lip once they walk past, earning honks from a passing car.
“Nah, we’re fine. Look, there’s a cowgirl and a baseball player,” I point out, gesturing toward the house where the party’s being held, a block off-campus. People hang out on the lawn and the front porch, vaping and drinking from plastic cups as purple and red lights flash from the windows.
“When you grow up, you don’t have many chances to dress up like this,” I muse, glancing over my shoulder.
Is it because I expect to see Ren’s dark jacket, or because I want to?
It doesn’t matter because he’s nowhere to be found.
“We slipped them. Don’t worry about it.” She’s so touchingly innocent, thinking I’m worried about escaping the security guards.
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Ren. Your angel is looking for you.
I’ve lost count of how many times over the past two years I’ve replayed the sound of his voice in my head, the throb in it when he called me angel. His angel. If my costume isn’t strong enough of a signal, I don’t know what is.
Unless I’m completely losing my mind, making things up in my head. I guess that’s possible, as much as I don’t want it to be.
If you think about something long enough. If you believe in it, you might start to think it’s true when really it’s a delusion. If I didn’t feel what I feel in my soul for Ren, I’d believe that thought, but I just can’t.
“Happy end of the year!” A total stranger throws his arms around our necks and pulls us in for a sloppy hug once we enter the noisy three-story house. “We fucking did it!”
“Yeah, we did.” I manage to escape before he grabs my boob, which his hand is pretty close to, and I pull Tessa along with me.
Some people will use any excuse to get handsy. There’s only one person I want to get handsy with. Nobody else will do.
I know Tessa wants me to loosen up and start dating. There are only so many ways to shut the idea down without coming out and admitting the truth—I’ll only ever want one man. The one man I’m never supposed to be with. She would never deliberately rat on me, but she might accidentally let it slip in front of the wrong people one day, and I can’t have that.
So it’s safer for her to think I’m, I don’t know, uninterested.
We stop at the kitchen for beers from the keg before taking a tour of the rest of the party. It’s filling up quickly, so it takes time to elbow our way through the crowd. Usually, kids come in from Boston and surrounding areas on the weekends to party here, but this is a one-off sort of event taking place in the middle of the week. Silly me thought that would make it less crowded. If anything, this is the most packed I’ve ever seen a house party. Everybody wants to let loose now that the last exams are finished.
Tessa recognizes a few people from one of her classes—I can’t hear over the thudding bass blasting from speakers nearby—and gestures for me to follow as she cuts through the crowd to say hi.
It’s not like I have anything better to do, so I trail behind her. Considering the amount of dancing, drinking, and dry humping going on around me, keeping track of her is no easy feat. The scent of so many different perfumes and heavy, cloying body sprays mix with perspiration and spilled alcohol in the air make me as dizzy as I’d be after several more beers.
The back of Tessa’s head bobs up and down but almost disappears when a trio of girls dancing like nobody’s watching just about knock me down.
“Sorry, babe,” one of the girls screams before straightening my halo. “You look hot!”
“Uh, thanks?” She’s already forgotten me, arms thrown over her head as she bounces up and down to the heavy, throbbing beat that reverberates through the floor and up my legs.