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)
“I’m just tired,” she whispers. “I’m so tired.”
“You probably shouldn’t have come to school today. You have a bug or something.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” Suddenly, she sits up straighter, angling herself so she’s facing me a little more. “Why did you follow me last night? Were you at the hospital? Did you follow me from the parking lot?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “We saw your car.”
“Putting aside the fact that you have nothing better to do than follow me, what are you doing at the hospital? Is your sister still there? Is she okay?”
“Oh, no, they let her go the next day.” And now I remember where all of this started, and why I hate her to begin with. “We’ve been volunteering at the hospital lately. We have to do at least twelve hours a week.” Which feels like fifty, but who’s counting?
“Why?”
Of course, she wouldn’t know. I have to wait a second to let her curiosity grow before I drop the bomb. “You see, somebody got us in trouble, and our dad ordered us to volunteer at the hospital or else he would take away our phones and cars.”
“No way. You’re just saying that.”
“Does it sound like I’m kidding?” I ask as I turn onto her street. The car is a piece of shit, but it doesn’t drive half bad.
“But… you were doing it because of what Brody did to your sister.”
The laugh that bursts out of me comes as a surprise. But then, so does the way her opinion has totally changed. “And there I was, thinking you believed we deserved the firing squat for what we did.”
She’s still searching for something to say by the time I pull up in front of her house. “Here you go. Don’t let me see you around school tomorrow.”
“No offense, but maybe get out of my car and give me the keys before I go in the house.” She even holds out her hand.
“Right. Because I’m dying to steal your car. I’ve always dreamed about cruising around town in a rust bucket like this.” I hand her the keys after getting out of the car, pulling my phone out while I do. There’s a text from Preston, no big surprise. Where the hell are you? You were supposed to meet me after class.
At Emma’s. Drove her home, need a ride. And now he can ask himself the whole way how I ended up here. Let him guess. I actually hope he tries to give me shit about it, because I didn’t forget what Emma said in the parking lot about the blowjob. I only chose not to dig any deeper.
“Well… bye, I guess. And…” Standing at her front door, her hand on the knob, she glances at me before looking away. “Thank you for having my back.”
“Don’t forget, I’m getting something out of it.”
“Could you go, like, five minutes without being a dick?” She storms into the house and slams the door closed a split second before I laugh at how easy it is to piss her off. The porch swing is perfect for waiting—I even feel a little calmer by the time Preston pulls up after speeding down the street. What was he expecting to find? Since I know he’s in a hurry, I take my time getting up from the swing, then walk slowly down the concrete path and make a big deal of closing the gate behind me and making sure the latch locks.
“Hurry up!” Preston barks from inside the truck after rolling the window down. “What are you even doing here?”
“She needed a ride,” I tell him, climbing into the truck and closing the door before adding, “Somebody wiped her out when they forced her to blow them back at school.” I might be guessing on that, but something tells me I’m not wrong.
And I’m not, either, since he blows out a deep sigh. “She told you about that? She can’t keep anything quiet, can she?”
“Is that seriously what you think the problem is?”
“What is the problem?” he counters while his hands tighten around the wheel until his knuckles stand out bright white against his skin. “Don’t tell me you care all of a sudden.”
“How did it even happen?”
“You know how it is. Sometimes one thing leads to another…” When all I can do is groan, he continues, “I told her we know she’s hiding something. I told her if she doesn’t want us to go to Grandma Lois and tell her she’s secretly meeting somebody at the hospital, she would suck me off. Right there in one of the science labs, too.” There’s pride in his voice. I don’t know if I’m jealous or disappointed. We never talked about doing that, or even going to her grandma to start trouble. He just went ahead and made all these decisions on his own.