Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
The sun had long ago dropped below the tops of the pine trees. The unbearable heat had shifted into a close-knit humidity that had condensation rolling from the bottle of whiskey clutched in my hand. The back door creaked open, and Dog lazily sat up in the lawn chair beside me.
“Hey, you coming?” Bellamy’s voice drifted over the lawn, but I didn’t bother looking at him.
“Nah. Don’t feel like it.”
Footfalls crossed the grass seconds before Bell stopped in front of me. “You okay, man?”
Not even fucking close. “Yeah. Fine.”
He glanced at the bottle in my hand. “You only drink whiskey when shit’s fucked up.”
I lifted the drink to my mouth and took a hearty swig. “I said I’m fine.”
“I know it was shit for you this weekend, but the suspension is up after next week.”
“Bell—”
“Or is this just about Jade?”
Thankfully, the door banged open again, saving me from having to answer that. Petey and Rogue rounded the side of the house.
“You guys coming or what?” Rogue asked.
“Yeah,” Bellamy said, then held out his hand. “Where are your keys?”
“What the hell do you need my keys for?”
He thumped the side of the bottle. “Just in case you decide you want to come out.”
Mumbling “bullshit” under my breath, I lifted to one side, fished my keys from my pocket, then tossed them to him. I wasn’t stupid enough to drink and drive, but if it made his mother-hen ass feel better…
I watched him join the rest of the guys before I took another sip. Dad used to get onto me for drinking, saying it wouldn’t solve my problems. The thing he didn’t know was that I’d watched the man who had never touched a drop in his life go from downing half a pint of whiskey every night after Mom became sick, then half a liter after she died. He’d hide it in a Thermos, topped it off with a little coffee, but I could smell the liquor on his breath and hear the bottles clank together every time he took out the trash. He wasn’t wrong; it didn’t solve jack shit, but it sure as hell helped numb the pain.
A light breeze kicked up, stirring leaves across the yard, and I dropped my head back against the chair. It had been hard enough that Jade left me, hard when I’d thought she cut all contact with me. But knowing that the person I had felt closer to than anyone else hadn’t felt close enough to confide in me—but had talked to that manipulative fuckface…
That was a piece of rusted shrapnel clean through the damn heart, ripping and tearing, and I didn’t want to feel any of it, so I drank.
Halfway through the bottle, and after I’d replayed what felt like every damn minute of mine and Jade’s relationship, thunder rolled in the distance. Dog leaped from the chair and took off for the house right before fat drops of warm rain splattered my arm. I shoved up from the chair, staggering a little on my way to the back porch.
As soon as the door closed behind me, I went up to my room, dropped to the floor beside my bed, and yanked out the Adidas box, allowing the masochist within me to fully take hold.
I opened the box, took a swig, then pulled out one of the origami notes.
I unfolded a flower, the creases well-worn from the number of times I’d opened it, only to refold it in its intricate pattern again—something too delicate and creative for my clumsy fingers. Each different shape had taken me ages to learn. I had done it, I thought, in some desperate bid to keep her preserved.
I read over her words, scratched out when she was only seventeen.
Today I will take one step forward, however small. But only because you hold my hand.
It was the first affirmation she had ever given me, after I’d given her several written in basic notes. Trying to help her through hard times, the same way my mom had tried to get through hers. When she’d given me the flower, I’d checked out Beginners to Origami from the Dayton Public Library and taught myself the basics. I didn’t realize it then, but I did it because I had already fallen for her and would have done any damn thing to make that girl happy.
I tossed the flower to the floor, then grabbed a butterfly, and unfolded the paper, eating up the sight of her handwriting like it was a lifeline.
Our love is stronger than any disagreement.
She’d given me that one in class after our first argument.
Next, I went for a bird.
Thank you. For loving me when I couldn’t love myself.
Then, a newer one she’d given me only two months before she asked for a break.
Whatever our souls are made of, I think yours and mine are the same.