Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 145634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 728(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 728(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
“I know,” I tell my mom and scoop up a bit of the potatoes, but I just end up putting the fork down.
If Nathan didn’t live where he does, I could just walk to his house. I don’t have a car though, and he’d be pissed if I walked there to see him. And it’s freezing outside. I did once, and it’s the only fight we’ve gotten into where I was scared to talk back to him. He never yelled at me like that before.
It’s because he loved me enough to want me safe. And that only makes me want to go to him even more.
I love him, more than anything and I wish we didn’t fight. I don’t know why we push each other like we do. We need it to stop, but I don’t know how.
Tears prick my eyes and I push my chair back from the table. “May I please be excused?” I ask, knowing I’m upsetting my mom by not talking to her.
“Baby,” my mom says at the same time that Dad tells me to go ahead and leave.
The table shakes slightly as I get up and don’t say another word, taking the escape Dad gave me.
I head straight to my room, wanting to sleep this night off until I can see Nathan tomorrow and try to make it right.
“Let her be. She’s a teenager,” I hear my dad say as I climb the stairs, holding on to the etched wood banister as I go.
My parents met when they were kids, but I don’t think they’d understand. I don’t even think they’d approve. So I don’t tell them anything and maybe that was a mistake.
I never did tell my family that I’d fallen in love only to have my heart shredded in a way that was unimaginable. I think my mom knew though. She could always tell when something was wrong. Maybe that’s why she hovered so much my senior year. Maybe it’s why she wants me to stay close. I’m her baby and I always will be.
Some things I can’t share with her though.
It’s a story that’s just meant for Nathan and me.
I wish I’d known how to talk to him back then. I wish I’d been smarter and known what he needed without relying on him to tell me.
Things could have turned out so much differently if we’d only known how to handle each other. But we came from different worlds and that was something we couldn’t help.
CHAPTER 7
Nathan
My eyes look back at me from the mirror which is in the dead center of my dressing room. I haven’t noticed how red they are; I haven’t noticed the bags.
Three days of failed takes and threats of being pulled. Three days of Mark begging me to tell him what’s wrong, so he can fix it before I’m fired.
Three days of me feeling like I’m eighteen again. Because I’m avoiding her. I’m a fucking coward for doing it, but I know she’ll break me. She’ll bring me back to the exact thing I’ve been running from.
It was so easy to just live when I didn’t have a reminder of my past.
“You want to do something fun?” she’d asked me. She always asked me that. There was a sparkle in her eyes when she did it, too. Like she knew she’d get me into trouble. I can just see her whispering it off the set. I can see her luring me back to what we used to be and picture how she used to look at me. That desire in her eyes was the most addicting thing I’ve ever seen, ever felt. The taste of her lips and the feel of her curves as she moaned into my mouth is something I’ll never have enough of. It’ll be that question that pushes me to take my last breath.
September 17
“You want to do something fun?” she asks as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Her backpack shifts on her shoulder and she hitches it up as the bell rings again. The third and final bell.
Everyone’s on their way out. The hallways are crowded and occasionally someone brushes against Harlow. She sways easily, seemingly not to notice. But I notice and it pisses me off. There’s plenty of room to go around her. And I hate that they’re distracting her in the least.
“What do you think?” she asks me and my gaze is drawn back to her.
Her eyes are the lightest shade of blue I think I’ve ever seen but there’s a sparkle in them, and it reflects back at me as I stare at her. I let it last too, not saying a word and just letting her flirtatious suggestion hang in the air between us. It makes the tension grow and I live for that. For weeks she’s been pushing me, asking little questions she already knows the answers to, just to say something to me.