Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
It’s suddenly so possible, it’s impressive.
Maybe I made it all up.
“Sweetheart,” greets my mom from the sitting room, the little table next to her full of notebooks, with her phone in hand and a laptop sitting on her lap. “You’re home early this morning! After your text, well, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t realize you had a local friend to go and hang out in Fairview with.”
“I don’t.”
She stares back, puzzled.
I head up the stairs, leaving her with her puzzle.
The second I close the bathroom door and turn on the shower, something happens. The noise of the water filling my ears. Filling the room. Filling my brain. Then I slowly take off my clothes, and no matter where I look, I see his eyes by that hotel room window. I hear what he said. The way he looked at me when he spoke. How gently he held me in his arms.
Something doesn’t feel right about it.
Maybe that’s why I’m not crying.
Because I’ve got a puzzle of my own I don’t even have the first piece to.
The hot water pours over my body, washing away the bowling alley and the movie theater and the hotel, and I hear his laughter at a really dumb joke I made. Then I’m laughing at his. I see the sincerity in his eyes before we kissed. I see the sweetness after our kiss. I feel him holding me on the bed again, like he never let go.
I wonder when I drifted to sleep.
I wonder when he’d made the decision to leave. Was it before or after I closed my eyes?
On my way out of the house, my mom doesn’t even ask if I plan to visit my dad at the office. I guess she knows better than to try today; she senses the storm brewing in me.
But by the time I’ve parked my car in town, it isn’t a storm in me. More like the gray glow after the storm, when even pavement feels soft under your feet, when you can still smell rain in the air.
I run the front counter at T&S’s while Billy sits in the corner interviewing a sweet-faced junior from Spruce High, a girl with major cheerleader voice. I’m so distracted, I’ve been trying to wipe off the same spot on the counter the past half hour not realizing it’s a stain and needs something stronger. With the abyssal lack of customers, I go to the back in search of a chemical to use.
And in the dark, I see Austin’s shadowed smile under his hat.
His strong, hardened eyes and breathless face after our kiss in the movie theater.
His widened “oops” eyes after the bowling ball flew from him.
“I’m sorry, Timothy. You deserve more,” I mutter, reciting the note from memory, not that it’s much to memorize.
I’m ringing up a customer whose order I messed up four times in a row. Four. Wrong flavor. Then wrong container. Then wrong toppings. Now I’m lost navigating a POS I helped set up and almost charge Malcolm for ten Football Sundaes. “Need a breather, TJ?” he asks me over his glasses. He wears glasses now. His boyfriend Samuel demanded he get them after complaining about headaches and eye strain, though I imagine half the strain is just working for the ever-demanding Nadine Strong. “Is Billy running you ragged? If you don’t say something, I sure will. You need a break.”
“Sorry, there’s, uh … lots of stuff on my mind. Sorry, Malcolm. Do you need help carrying these to your car?” I offer.
“I can manage. Nadine’s having a thing at the church. Sort of an outreach thing, ‘listening to the people’, blah, blah. I heard you were in my neck of the woods last night on an outing? Your mom talked to my Spruce mom—Nadine—and they’re confused.”
Word sure travels fast here.
I’ve known that fact my whole life and it still surprises me.
Malcolm is from Fairview. His dad is head chef at a restaurant owned by the Strongs. Malcolm works here now as something of an event coordinator for Mrs. Strong. He’s dating a vet tech. It’s a long story. “I’ll tell you about my Fairview adventure sometime,” I assure him, “just not yet. I’m still, uh … catching up with myself.”
“Oh, it was one of those outings,” he says, presuming all of the worst, “well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Secret’s safe with me.”
“There is no secret,” I mutter, a touch annoyed, but Malcolm just picks up his order, winks at me, and sees himself out. I let my eyes fall to the counter where I see that same spot-stain I spent half my morning wiping for no reason.
That stain is becoming Austin.
I can’t wipe him away no matter what chemical I use.
Even the ones that require gloves.
Which is technically all of them.