Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Their paths never should have crossed. Torrence Dunworthy lived with his four brothers and his sometimes-there-but-mostly-not mother, always struggling to get by. Julian Sterling was born into a life of privilege and connections, which was the only reason his anger issues didn’t get him kicked out of kindergarten. He’d also never had a friend. And then Jule met Tor.
They shouldn’t have had anything in common. Their parents shouldn’t have involved six-year-olds in their affair. They shouldn’t have found ways to stay connected when everything seemed designed to drive them apart. A lot of things shouldn’t have happened over nearly three decades. But one thing that never wavered was their commitment to one another.
Their paths were destined to cross. They had everything in common. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and despite surface appearances, Jule and Tor grew from the same orchard, with roots too deep to kill
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1 – Age 6
“Julian, this is Torrence. Stay here and play with him. I need to get some work done with his mother.”
Big blue eyes in a dirt-streaked face looked up at him. The boy was sitting on a weird bed, which wasn’t made, and he was wearing his daytime clothes. They looked filthy. There was a big hole on the shoulder of the shirt and both knees of his jeans. So much was wrong with the scene that Julian was too distracted to argue with his father and demand that they go home.
His mother had bought him the new Pokémon game the night before and she said he could play it as long as he was being good. He hadn’t broken anything or yelled at anyone at school that day so he should be in his playroom enjoying his new game. Instead, he was in someone else’s room. Someone else’s small room. He could fit four of them in his bedroom. It was crowded with two sets of bunkbeds. It smelled funny.
“Your bed’s weird,” he said to the boy. The bunkbed didn’t look like one Julian had ever seen. The bottom bunk wasn’t a bed at all, just a mattress on the floor with a rumpled blanket. The top bunk didn’t have a rail to keep the person safe. The wood looked splintery.
“It’s a bunkbed,” the boy, Torrence, said.
“I know it’s a bunkbed,” Julian snapped. He wasn’t stupid.
“My brothers built it. I helped.”
He considered that statement. “You built your own bed?”
Torrence nodded. “We found a bunch of pallets. Had enough to make a couch too.”
“What’s a pallet?”
The boy’s face scrunched together and Julian started getting mad. He wasn’t stupid just because he’d never heard of a pallet.
“I’ll show you.” Torrence stood, walked over, and tugged at his shirt. “Come on.”
“My dad told me to stay here,” he reminded Torrence.
“So?” he shrugged.
Julian decided he liked him. He followed Torrence out of the room, down a short hallway, through the living room or family room or television room, Julian couldn’t tell which it was. He stopped walking and looked around. There was a lot of furniture crowded in the space, but he could pick out the couch Torrence said he built. It had the same type of strange wood as the beds, stacked in a row with cushions on it.
“You coming, Julie?” Torrence said. He stood a few steps away, staring at him.
He felt his skin go hot. “My name’s Julian.”
“That’s too long.”
He stomped over to Torrence and pushed him. “Julian’s a boy’s name. Julie’s a girl’s name. Don’t call me that.” There wasn’t an adult around to punish him, but Torrence would cry and run to his mom and she’d tell Julian’s dad, and then he wouldn’t be allowed to play his Nintendo when he got home. That made him even angrier, and he punched Torrence in the stomach.
“Wow, Julie,” he said, smiling instead of crying. “You’re strong.” He tugged at Julian’s shirt again. “Come on.” He pulled a confused Julian into the kitchen and out the back door.
The backyard didn’t have much grass, mostly dirt and rocks and a couple of trees. There wasn’t a sport court or a playground set but there was stuff everywhere. He followed Torrence around the maze of piles until they reached an area with the same wood he had seen inside.
“These are pallets,” Torrence said. “They use them to move blocks and plants and shit.”
He snapped his head to other boy and his jaw dropped. “That’s a bad word.”
He shrugged like he had inside. “Want to play a game?”
“Do you have Pokémon?” he asked.
“What’s that?”
He was surprised that Torrence didn’t know but he hadn’t made fun of him when he didn’t know what a pallet was, so Julian didn’t tease him about it. He couldn’t show him the game because it was at home, so he explained, “It’s a Nintendo game.”
“Oh. I don’t play video games.”
“Your mom doesn’t let you?” he asked, understanding. His mother hadn’t either. She used to say screen time was bad for him. But then one day, she gave him the Nintendo and said he could play it if he didn’t get in trouble at school. He could share that idea with Torrence and maybe his mom would get him a Nintendo too.
“My mom’s almost never here. She’s only been back for a week this time.”
“Um.” He tried to understand but wasn’t sure he did. Maybe his mother traveled for work a lot, like his mom. “Your dad doesn’t let you?”
“He never lives here,” Torrence said, shaking his head.
“Why?”
“Video games cost too much,” Torrence said, misunderstanding what he was asking. He grasped Julian’s wrist and pulled him through the yard. “Come on. This’ll be fun.” As they walked, Torrence stopped and dug through piles. “Hold this.” He handed Julian two metal pipes and then walked off. Julian’s shirt was definitely going to be dirty. He considered whether his parents would be mad enough to take away his Nintendo privileges.