Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Emily, please,” Mom says.
“They’re going to get divorced,” Emily says, a wild look in her eyes. “They hate each other. And they certainly don’t give a damn about us.”
“Come outside with me,” I demand, pulling her back over toward the door and shoving it open.
As we step outside, Niko follows.
Emily looks at Niko with a bitter expression on her face.
“Really nice to meet you today, Niko. Welcome to our shitshow.”
Niko gently closes the back door behind him.
Out here, the air is freezing. The wall lamp beside the back door is the only light outside, and Emily stands with the blanket wrapped around her, reaching down to her pocket and pulling out a pack of Marlboro Lights.
I snap the pack out of her hands before she can stop me. I toss it over into the lawn trash bin and she pretends not to care, looking out toward the cluster of trees that line the back edge of our big yard.
My head is swimming.
I don’t know if what Emily said is true or not, but something deep inside me believes it.
It’s crumbling.
Everything I thought I knew.
This life that Niko thought was so perfect.
“Are you okay?” Niko asks her.
“Do I seem okay? I fucking hate my life.”
I feel like someone has a vise around my heart, squeezing it until it nearly breaks.
No.
Not my little sister.
How can everyone good hate their lives so much?
“I hated absolutely every aspect of my life when I was getting near the end of high school,” Niko starts to tell her, and I’m amazed he can summon the will to form a coherent thought right now at all. “Hated my parents, even though my dad wasn’t part of my life at all. Hated my mom for being so cold to me. Despised the idea of college.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, it won’t work,” Emily says.
All I can picture is how happy she seemed the last time I saw her, just this last August before I went to Crimson.
She had just gotten back from a beach trip. She was sad to see me go, but wished me a good first year.
“You’re not going to feel better,” Niko says. “You’re going to feel completely fucking powerless.”
“Sure fucking do,” she says before looking at me. “Mom and Dad are fighting every night. They’re playing nice because you guys came home. And tonight, I just wanted to go have fun with Cheyenne, but we got drunk and she told me that she fucked Darien Brown last night. I did everything with Darien. All year. And he fucking told me last week that I could be the first girl he falls in love with—”
She breaks off into a sob, and as I realize how personal this all is, some small piece of tension unravels in me.
She’s hurting.
She’s not going down some awful path.
She just wants love, and got her heart broken.
“Emily,” I say as I wrap my arms tight around the blanket surrounding her shoulders.
She sobs against me as I hold her tight.
“I fucking hate him. I hate her. I hate them all.”
“I hate him for that, too,” I say.
I reach over and turn on the small patio heater next to us, and for the next half hour, Niko and I listen to every detail that Emily wants to spill.
We let her complain about the asshole boy that broke her heart. About her friend Cheyenne, who’s probably now an ex-friend.
And eventually, as she breathes deep and stops crying, she talks about our parents.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be divorce,” she says. “But shit’s just different since you left, Ollie. You were like… the glue. Of this entire house.”
I’m astonished.
“I didn’t think anybody cared about my presence at all,” I tell her. “I was just… there. I didn’t do anything special.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Even Aaron misses you. He doesn’t admit it. But he’s bored that there’s no one who’s worse than him at card games.”
I let out an unexpected laugh, and miraculously, she starts laughing, too.
“God,” she finally says with a sigh. “Niko, I’m sorry you had to see this. Welcome to the crazy factory.”
“This is nothing,” he promises her. “I’m sorry you had such an awful night. I don’t know you that well, Emily, but I know you deserve better.”
She gives me a sad smile.
“You’re so lucky, Oliver. Can’t even imagine having a boyfriend who’s actually caring like him.”
A coil of guilt wraps around my heart.
I want to tell her it’s all fake, but I don’t have it in me, right now.
“You’ll find someone so much better than Darien. But you have to promise me something. Don’t start smoking, Em.”
“I won’t. I don’t even like the taste. It’s kind of gross.”
“I smoked for a while when I was fifteen, then another little lapse when I was seventeen. Not a great path to go down,” Niko says.