Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
The first note broke the night hush and somehow melded with it too. Emily’s voice was high and sweet, but also held an undertone of smoke as though she’d inhaled the bonfire and it wove between the words. Everything inside me seemed to still—my thoughts, my breath, even the beat of my heart and the flow of my blood—taking up the slow melody of the song. Emily sang about rainbows and bluebirds, but it felt like more than that. A longing rose inside me, for what I had no words to describe. All I knew was that I was completely entranced. And that if she looked at me again, I wouldn’t be able to hide it.
The beauty of her voice was effortless, even if there was a sad quality to it. Maybe she was feeling the loss of that music camp that would be taken from her as she sang the melody. But rather than ruin the song, her sadness seemed to add something…an extra note…another chord. I didn’t understand it exactly, but I felt it, and I could tell the others watching felt it too, saw the way Emily’s mother brought her hand to her heart, and a farmhand named Arleen wiped her eye.
As the song came to an end, Emily dropped her head, bending in a bow, the final note somehow still suspended all around us, though it had already faded to silence. The small audience jumped to their feet, clapping exuberantly, whistles ringing out. Emily smiled, and my mother stood, taking her in a hug. “You’re a star, beautiful girl,” I barely heard her say from where I stood.
The applause died down, conversation picking up, a few people heading toward the standing ice buckets where drinks were chilling. I watched as Emily took a deep breath, walking toward her father.
I moved behind a row of hedges closer to where they stood.
“Dad… I have something to tell you,” I heard her say.
“What is it, honey?”
“Your Thunderbird…”
“My Thunderbird?” His eyes widened and his head swiveled toward the old barn as though he might be able to see it from where he was standing. “What about it?”
“The…the windshield is broken. Shattered.” I heard the tears in her voice even though I was standing twenty-five feet away. I ducked slightly, moving behind a flowering bush.
“What?” He pulled her to the side of the patio, nearer to where I was listening in, and through the foliage, I saw the people who had been standing nearby turn back to their own conversations to give them some privacy. I gently moved the brush aside, watching as Mr. Swanson gripped the front of his hair in his hands, shaking his head. “How in the hell did that happen?” he yelled. Emily’s shoulders curled forward, and she hung her head. I could see most of her father’s face, and his expression went through several stages of anger.
“I was in the old stable,” she said. “I just wanted to see your car decorated. Sorry, Dad.”
His jaw clenched and he spoke through barely moving lips when he said, “Sorry? Sorry? You asked if you could walk out to the Mattices’ old stable, didn’t you?”
Her head hung lower. “Yes, Dad.”
“And what did I tell you?”
“You said no.”
“That’s right. I told you explicitly that you weren’t allowed in there. Sorry isn’t good enough, Emily Nicole. In fact, this is the final straw in a string of poor choices and unacceptable grades. You will stay home this weekend and you will—”
“I broke your windshield, sir,” I said, stepping out of the brush and coming to stand next to Emily, who pulled in a surprised breath as she lifted her head and turned toward me. “It was an accident, but…it was me who did it.”
From my peripheral vision I saw Emily’s mouth fall open.
“Tuck? You broke my windshield?” Mr. Swanson asked. “How? How in the hell did that happen?”
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “I hang out in there sometimes. In the old barn. I dropped a hand weight from the loft. It landed on your windshield. I’m sorry. Emily was only there because I asked her to come see it. She thought you’d take it better if she broke the news to you. But it was me who did it.”
“What’s this?” my father asked, coming up next to me.
“I broke Mr. Swanson’s Thunderbird windshield,” I muttered. “It was just an accident.”
“An accident?” my father exclaimed. “How does an accident like that happen? What were you doing in the old stable anyway? Jesus H. Christ, Tuck—”
“Rand,” my mother said, approaching my father and putting a hand on his arm, obviously having heard what was going on. “Let’s all calm down. We can figure this out.”
He shook her hand off. “This is unacceptable. What’s wrong with you, Tuck?”
My face burned, and for a moment I almost took back my false confession, the one I hadn’t really planned on or thought through, the one that had seemed to break from my lips of its own accord. “I’ll pay for it,” I murmured, daring a glance at Mr. Swanson, who was massaging his temples.