Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
He’s the picture of patience, and here I am with a bobby pin I stole from Ari’s bathroom in my pocket, just waiting for night to fall so I can pick the lock on Payton’s room tonight and force her to talk to me.
Why won’t she talk to me?
A frustrated groan leaves me, and I glance toward Noah, but he isn’t looking at me anymore. A slow smile is spreading across his face, a faraway look taking over, and I don’t have to turn to know who stepped out onto the deck.
“Sister,” I call out to test my theory.
“Brother.”
Grinning, I peek over to find her leaning against the railing, chin pressed in her palm. Slowly, her eyes leave Noah’s and meet mine for a brief smile before sliding back to the man beside me.
The warmth in her gaze fills me with happiness, but just as quickly, the sentiment switches into something else.
He has his girl.
I thought one day, I’d have mine.
Maybe I won’t.
Maybe that’s a pipe dream never to see the light of day.
Maybe I need to work a little harder.
“I’m gonna go see what Nate’s up to.”
“Uh-huh,” Ari teases, like she knows what’s up.
She couldn’t possibly. No one does.
No one but me…and the girl I want to be mine.
“You do know she’s at the zoo with Mom and Aunt Sarah today, right?”
Ari not only proves she’s more in tune than I thought but shocks the shit out of me with her question. Or admission, because no, I did not know that. It should settle me knowing Payton’s spending time with my family, the people who love me most, but it doesn’t.
I want to be the person she spends her time with. I want to be the one to show Little D the monkeys and the bears. Maybe this is good, though, a twisted sort of sign she’s still in reach, if only through those closest to me.
She will be. She has to be.
What the fuck will I do if she won’t be?
CHAPTER FOUR
Payton
Now, July 4
I never understood why people enjoyed trips to the beach. Who would want to swim in freezing cold water? Anyone who has so much as put their feet in the ocean off the coast of California knows the one thing this sunny state does not have…is warm ocean water. Sure, sometimes it’s less than freezing, but it’s never warm, and don’t even get me started on the sand.
Dare to swim and you’re gifted with a suit full of it, but not only that, you get ratted hair as a bonus, even if the tips never so much as graze the water’s surface. Oh, and good luck vacuuming the bits that make it back to your car with you. No matter how many times you beat your sandals against the curb or shake your towel out, it’s never enough. The sand demons win every time.
So yeah, who the hell would want to spend a single minute at the beach, right?
God, what a prissy brat my mother raised me to be.
Thankfully, my brother is the furthest thing from his mother’s son and showed me what I wasn’t seeing, encouraged me to open not only my eyes but my mind.
Now?
I don’t understand how anyone could ever hate the beach.
To be honest, I have no idea where I would be right now without it.
The waves, while unforgiving, don’t judge.
The sun doesn’t sear you with worried eyes and taut expressions.
The wind doesn’t push for words when you don’t feel like talking.
The sand doesn’t crunch beneath your feet like the eggshells everyone seems to walk on around me. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Here, there’s no pity for the poor little thing, and that’s exactly what I have become. To everyone.
Poor Payton lost the boy she loved.
Poor Payton never got to finish her senior year of high school.
Poor Payton is a teenage mom.
Poor Payton is a single mom.
Poor poor pitiful me, right? That’s how the song goes?
It’s not as hard as you’d think to avoid your feelings, but how could it be when everyone around tells you how okay you’re going to be? It’s why I like it better when school is in session and everyone is back in their dorms at their respective colleges, leaving the house empty. There’s no one to hover, no one to pretend to be fine in front of when all you want to do is freak the fuck out every now and then—because it’s not like it’s all the time. Or it was, but then it wasn’t.
It is again, though, isn’t it?
Groaning, I rub my hands down my face. God, maybe I am this little lost soul everyone sees me as.
Well, not everyone.
He doesn’t. He sees so much more than the broken girl with a battered heart. He—no.
I squeeze my eyes closed, pushing away the thought. I can’t think of him. It’s…wrong.