Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Yeah, so long as you don’t want any of your weird shit on it.”
I roll my eyes at my brother over the hood of the truck. “Since when are mushrooms weird shit?” Though really, I’m glad he’s acting normal again. He can make fun of me for liking mushrooms all he wants, so long as he’s talking to me and not pulling his wannabe-Dad bullshit like he did at the party. That’s usually how it is. Shit winds down after a little while. It usually takes us both going back to our corners and getting our shit together. It’s never really serious.
I can almost taste the fresh, cheesy goodness as I open my door—but something up ahead catches my eye and stops me before I can get inside. Something I can see through the window now that the door is hanging wide open.
“What’s wrong? Fine, have mushrooms.” Preston is snickering as he settles in the passenger seat.
“No, it’s her car.” I nod toward it—I would know it anywhere. It sticks out like a sore thumb.
In the corner of my eye, I see Preston slouching in his seat and folding his arms. “Visiting again? Good for her.”
“I wonder if she found all her pearls,” I muse, climbing in behind the wheel and slamming the door shut, remembering how she slapped my arm away yesterday when I tried to help. She wasn’t around school today—too heartbroken? Or just afraid to show her face?
“Whatever. It was an accident. She acted like we tried to kill her.” I can tell he feels a little bad about it. Even if she was hanging out with Brody—I don’t want to think about it, but it’s possible—she seemed totally broken by the time we left without ever getting the drinks we went in for to begin with.
I thought I wanted to watch her break. I craved it, didn’t I? The thing is, a small part of me might have broken along with her. Because I’ve never heard anybody wail the way she did. I’ve never seen anyone look as pitiful, either, crawling around on hands and knees, looking for little pearls like they were the only thing keeping her alive.
“Well?” he prods when all we do is sit here for a while, staring out through the windshield. “Are we going or what?”
Are we? “Let’s give it a minute,” I suggest. “I’m curious.”
“About what? Her? All we ever get is trouble.”
“Since when do you give up?”
“Give up?” He gives me a shove, scoffing. “What is this all about for you?”
“You mean you’re not interested in her anymore? Get the fuck out of here.” I shove him back harder than he shoved me—firmly enough that he knows I’m not screwing around. “What if she’s going to meet up with him?”
“She wouldn’t. Think about what we saw yesterday. They weren’t, like, hanging out.”
He’s right. When I thought about it, when we talked about it later, we agreed it was pretty obvious he was up in her face over something. She even looked relieved when we walked in, meaning he must have freaked her out. He’s good at that. We reacted without thinking, though I doubt anybody could blame us. Especially when she decided to pull her smart-ass routine again and threaten to testify against us.
“Do you think she would do it?” Preston asks now. He doesn’t need to explain what he’s talking about.
“No way,” I reply, shaking my head, but still staring at the car. “You told her what happened. You said she believed you. She wouldn’t take his side. She was only trying to get in our heads.”
Or is that only what I want to believe? If she goes against us on the record, we’re fucked. There’s only so much any of Dad’s friends can do to help us out of that. We could have our lawyers tear her down, make her look unreliable, like she’s got an ax to grind against us, but then there’s the video from the elevator, too. Maybe we shouldn’t have cornered her like we did.
I cannot get her out of my head. That’s the only thing I know for sure.
And when she appears, a small figure that quickly gets bigger the further she gets from the hospital door, the world around me gets sharper. Clearer. I would swear I can see every twitch of her face, every movement of her eyes as she hurries to her car with her arms folded and her shoulders hunched. Did she get bad news today? Do I really care? Not about the news itself, but about her. What she’s thinking. What she’s doing next.
“Are we seriously following her? I thought we were going to get pizza.” Preston sounds bored, but he can deal with it. It’s not like we’re going to be out all night.
Without answering him, I start the truck and follow her at a safe distance. Instead of turning left out of the parking lot, the way I would to go home, I make a right. She’s up ahead of me, taillights glowing in the growing darkness. A beacon I can’t help but follow, the way I can’t help but think of her.