Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
“Because you have done what I always wanted for him,” she says.
“What?”
“Help him fall in love again.”
My heart stops. It does. It also falls to the bottom of my stomach.
Love again. Love. Again.
Again.
Why would she say that? How would she even know? How would she… Is she being cruel? Because he told me himself he can’t. He told me in exact words he can’t love again. He’s too broken for it. And after what just happened in the bathroom…
I look up then.
I’ve been sitting with my back to the room at large until I moved to sit beside his ex-girlfriend. And now I can see the space beyond. It’s crowded like I said. There are a ton of people here, standing, sitting on couches like us, mingling, laughing. You’d think I’d have to hunt him down in this chaos. I’d have to look for him, but I don’t.
I find him the moment I decide I want to.
Because he’s already looking at me. Standing in direct view and in a group of his teammates, he already has his eyes on me. He always does, doesn’t he? Whether I can tell or not.
After making me swallow that pill, he left me alone. Before I could stop him, he left the room altogether, probably to go to his and get changed. Because a few minutes later, while I was sobbing on the bathroom floor, there was a knock at the door. It was Snow, telling me that everyone was ready and waiting, including him. I got ready as soon as I could, ignoring the pain in my chest, and rushed downstairs to the ornate lobby. We rode in the car together but because Snow and Conrad and Wyn were with us, we didn’t have a moment to chat about what happened. An hour later, we still haven’t gotten that moment.
I didn’t think I’d have that until the end of the night when we got back. And since he’s not really good at talking, I knew I’d have to be the one to broach the subject, to take the lead. Although I still don’t know what I would say to him.
What do you say to the person you’ve woven a dream with? What do you say to the man you’ve dreamed a dream and wished a wish with? You tell him you love him. And then you tell him he loves you back.
Because he does.
He does, he does, he does.
Oh God, he does.
My heart comes back up, pounding, racing, soaring. As if blasting off from the bottom of my stomach, my soul like a star. That soccer ball he used to shatter my window and get to me.
How did I not see that before? It’s so obvious. It’s so easy to spot. So easy that a girl who hasn’t even seen him in weeks could do it. So easy with how his eyes always seem to find me. The way he loses his mind when I’m away, the way he’s been so restless these past few weeks. The way he’s obsessed with everything I do. The little things, the big things. Things I didn’t even know about myself like watching action movies with my nose scrunched; we watched a movie on Netflix last night and he told me that. Or that the reason I always get a burger is because I want to eat the fries. Because I always only finish half my burger but practically gulp down all the fries.
It's so obvious the way he wants a family with me. It’s not to fill a gap in his life or to get over his past love. It’s because he loves me. And yes, he said he couldn’t love again but love is not a choice. You don’t get to choose whether or not you fall in love. You can’t tell yourself to not love someone any more than you can tell yourself to get over someone.
Besides, don’t I know by now that he has so many walls erected around his emotions, his heart, his soul that he doesn’t even realize everything he feels?
He didn’t give me the pill because he can’t love me. He gave it to me because he does. Because he thinks his dream of a family with me—and it is a dream, isn’t it, and he probably doesn’t even know it—will take my dream of college and exploring things away. And he can’t do that. He can’t be selfish. He can’t hurt me that way, so he hurt himself and pushed that pill down my throat. So I could get everything I wanted.
But everything I ever wanted is him.
He’s my most precious dream, my biggest desire, always out of reach, always untouchable. A life with him is something I’ve always wanted but was too afraid to even think about, let alone reach for. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see the truth before. That he loves me.