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)
It’s the most boring town in the world and I hate it. I hate that it’s in the middle of nowhere and everyone here seems soccer crazy. As in, that’s the town sport. Everyone loves Friday night soccer games at the high school. Every restaurant and store and bar in town has soccer playing on their TV screens. It’s nuts, and I can’t wait to get out of here and go back to Pennsylvania.
And tonight, I’m going to make it happen.
Because my stepfather hates this town too. There was a huge fight between my mom and him, and I overheard him saying that he didn’t want to go ‘back’ to Bardstown. And mom said she didn’t want to either, but we wouldn’t have to if he’d gotten a job anywhere else. Turns out, there’s a reason why my stepdad didn’t want to move here.
I head to the bus stop. This town is still new to me but I’ve meticulously mapped out the route to my destination for the past week so I don’t get lost. Although from what I understand, even if I do get lost, I could ask anyone for directions, and they’d know what I was talking about. The place I’m going to is pretty famous here.
The Thorne house.
It sounds like the name of a castle or a museum or whatever, but it’s not. It’s where the Thorne family lives, four Thorne brothers and their baby sister. More than the house though, it’s their story that’s famous in Bardstown.
Their father abandoned them when they were really young and never looked back. He left them with their mother, who struggled to make ends meet. But they were happy because the father was a monster. He was abusive both physically and emotionally, and so they were better off without him. For a few years it seemed like things were going good for them. Yes, there had been struggles but they were managing.
But then their mother found out she had cancer, and after a long and painful fight, she passed away. At which point the oldest Thorne sibling gave up college and a very promising career in pro soccer to come back home and assume the guardianship of his younger siblings.
It’s been six years since then and they’ve managed to stay together, these four brothers and their sister. People love them for their unity and tenacity. Their saga is the first thing I heard when we moved here. Not only because of their tragic life story, but also because the Thorne brothers are soccer legends. Every single one of them is a great soccer player in the making.
In fact, one of them just got drafted to the pros, the first in his family after the oldest Thorne. People whisper about him in school hallways. Girls ooh and aah about him at lunch break, about how he’s the rising star of the New York City FC, the team he was drafted into. They call him the Wrecking Thorn, his soccer nickname because once he has the possession of the ball, nothing and no one can stop him from scoring a goal. He’s like a wrecking ball, destroying everyone in his path to victory. They say he has a bright future in the European League and how, even though he stays in New York most of the time to play with the team, he always makes sure to visit Bardstown to be with his family.
It’s the stuff of fairy tales, the struggle of the Thorne siblings, how they overcame everything and stand united. And I do feel bad that I’m going to ruin it for them tonight. But I don’t want to think about that right now. Not when I have to protect my sister. My mother too, from a monster, and hopefully get her love back.
Their street is quiet and dark. I use the moon to guide me to their house and when I get there, I pause and stare at it. Made of red bricks and a slanting roof, it looks like all the other houses on the street. Well, maybe a little more on the unkempt side, with the front lawn being wild and in need of mowing. There’s a brick pathway in the middle of it that goes up to the wide stairs leading to the rickety-looking porch, and it looks cracked as well. Something about that makes my heart clench.
I go around the house and notice their backyard is much the same, with long unkempt grass, a giant tree in the middle and a soccer net far back. There are stairs here too, which lead to the back porch, and the wood looks just as rickety.
It only manages to clench my heart harder. It only makes it more difficult to do what I’m here to do. I mean, they already have so much to deal with. Even though I know most of the Thorne siblings are adults now, they’re still pretty much parentless. They went through a really hard life—still going through it—and my presence may only make things more difficult. Just because my life is hard, it doesn’t give me the right to make someone else’s hard too.