Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“So, that’s why you haven’t had a girlfriend. Wouldn’t take my suggestion and get on Plenty O’ Ladies.”
“No. I just—”
“I may be older than dirt, but I still know a nice-looking young man when I see one. And you being the big football star and all. I know you gots all kinds of girls lining up to date you, and that the only reason you wouldn’t have one is if you had one—” She touched a gnarled finger to the middle of her chest. “Right here.”
She was right. I had dated Nora to convince myself Jade wasn’t the one and only, and that had gone down like flies on shit. Nora was pretty, sweet—the kind of girl most any guy would love to date, but it did nothing for me besides prove just how right Jade was for me and how wrong any other girl would be.
“And that pitiful look on your face tells me I’m right. Seemed to me like you two were something again—the way you looked at her. The way she looked at you.”
“Yeah. We were, but…” I screwed it up. “I think it was a mistake.” The pain in my chest had convinced me of that. Maybe I should have taken more time, gone on a few dates, and kept some distance instead of jumping right back in with both damn feet.
She shook her head, and her voice took on a sympathetic tone. “Love ain’t ever a mistake. You’re just scared, and you best get your butt unscared in a jiffy. Else you’re gonna end up like me. Living alone and regretting. And regret is a real pain in the rear.” She shoved the tiles back to the middle of the table, then laid down a set. Looked like we were playing again. “When I was twenty, I met Otis. Handsome fella. Funny. The light of my life. We spent over a year together. Talking ‘bout marriage and a family. Then he got accepted into some fancy university out in California, and I got mad. Thought I should’ve been enough to keep him here, in Pikestown. Selfish of me, but I was young. And you youngins tend to be stupid half the time.”
I managed to get a sequence of tiles together and place them on the table. “What happened?”
“Well, he moved. I stayed here, all hurt. Of course, he wrote. Even came to visit, begged me to come out there. Said it was pretty. All sunshiney and palm trees.”
I wouldn’t have needed sunshine and palm trees to move to the other side of the world. Jade would have been enough. “If you loved him, why didn’t you go?”
“‘Cause I was scared. Scared of moving and leaving the only life I’d known behind. Scared that I loved him more than he loved me—you know, ‘cause he’d picked—well, I thought he’d picked California over me. Mostly scared that I’d mosey on over there just to be left.”
She shook her head.
“Eventually, I guess he figured I didn’t care enough about him, and he went on with his life. Took me too long to figure out that I was really the one who had left. ‘Cause I was stubborn and let my own hurt feelings get my head in a tizzy.” She folded her arms over the table and leaned in. “And I tell you what, I have regretted it every day of my life. Because real love—and I don’t mean that shallow kind of love that makes you all hot and bothered, I mean the kind that fills your soul with peace, that you breathe your next breath for—that kind of love ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
“Most people won’t find it once in their life, sure as hellfire not twice. And when you lose that, you don’t ever get over it. It’s why I stayed alone. Trying to give myself to another man would have been a lie. Wouldn’t have been fair to whatever Blow Joe I settled for because I never would have loved someone the way I did my Otis.” She placed one tile next to mine. “So, whatever dumb stuff is goin’ on in that head of yours, snuff it out.”
That was what I’d been trying to do for days.
After three games of Rummikub—all of which Mrs. Seaton won—she sent Dog and me off with a Tupperware container of snickerdoodles.
When I pulled onto my road, I noticed Jade’s Jeep parked across the street. A sliver of hope sprang in my chest when I pulled into the drive. Maybe she wanted to talk, or maybe she wanted to chew me out. By the time I got out of the truck, she’d crossed the street. Dog shot off toward her, gave her a few licks, then took a lap around the yard.
“Hey,” I said, walking toward her.
“You sent my mom six grand?”