Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
“Of course, I’m not going to,” she hastily adds, snapping her notebook closed and thrusting it away.
“You—”
“I mean,” she cuts me off in agitation. “I’m not going to a café to meet some criminal that I’ve only talked to in letters. I wouldn’t even meet a… I don’t know, a priest that way. Because it’s insane. It’s crazy. It’s the height of recklessness. And I’m not reckless. I’m so far from reckless, it’s not funny.”
She’s right; my best friend is not reckless. She’s the opposite of that: careful, responsible, a rule-follower. Writing to a convicted felon in prison is probably the only thing she’s done that can be called risky.
“How dare he, by the way?” she continues as she gathers her books, straightening the mess. “How dare he ask me that? We had agreed. No, we’d more than agreed; we’d promised. He told me that this would be nothing more than a fantasy. That I was safe with him. Safe to imagine things; tell him things I’ve never told anyone in my life, and I…” She hiccups, gripping the edge of her textbook. “I believed him. I thought he was telling the truth, and now, he’s… I’m not… I don’t…”
I hug her then. I wrap my arms around her tightly and try to calm her down. Which makes me feel utterly useless because what good is a hug when I can’t do more. When I’ve actually done worse. Because I’m the one responsible for this, aren’t I? It’s my fault that Reverie is in this situation. My fault that she started writing letters to a prison inmate in the first place. Because she did that for me. Because I was failing sociology and asked her to help me with my extra-credit grade—which was to interview a prison inmate—and like the most generous friend she is, she agreed. So if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t even be in this position.
“How was your date?” she asks, still hugging me.
“I think we should talk more about you,” I say.
“I don’t want to talk about myself. I’m boring.”
“Boring is good,” I retort softly and more truthfully than she’ll ever know.
“Boring is boring,” she retorts back. “I like your stories better. They’re more fun than mine.”
My heart clenches in my chest and I smile sadly. Then I give her what she asked for, a story. “Well, as soon as he opened his mouth, I realized what a huge mistake I made.”
She chuckles. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
She squeezes her arms around mine. “Why do you go out with these guys?”
My heart twists again and I swallow before I lie, “Because they’re hot. And I still haven’t learned the lesson that hot does not equal interesting. I should just make a pact that I won’t go out with any guy that I meet at the gym.”
She chuckles again. “How’d you get out this time?”
“He went to the restroom and I cut.”
Finally, she laughs and breaks our hug. “You did not.”
I carefully school my expression to appear amused. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was falling asleep on my dinner.”
She watches me a beat, concern etched on her features. “You need to be careful, Pey. Not all men are… good.”
She’s right. She doesn’t even know how right she is.
Actually, scratch that. She does know. She grew up with a man like that, her father. Or rather, her drunk, abusive father. And a mother who was just as terrible. Together, they were a toxic combination, and growing up, all Reverie saw at her house was violence and abuse. It’s no wonder that she grew up to be cautious and careful, the opposite of her parents, wary of men and this world in general.
Much like me.
Although my story is different. One that I’m not going to share with her. It does make me feel shitty, though, lying to my best friend. The only person in this whole world who gives a crap about me, who’s been with me through everything.
She and I, we grew up together. Her parents worked for my family. Her mom was my nanny and her dad was one of the ranch hands. They had a cabin on our ranch, but Reverie spent all her time with me at my house and we were inseparable. In fact, despite having no familial connection, we even look the same. With the same shade of blue eyes and golden-blond hair, we look almost identical to each other. So much so that growing up, we’d take each other’s place and fool people. She’d go to my cello lessons for me because I hated cello, and I’d kick boys’ asses at our private school who were mean to her just because her parents worked for my parents and she didn’t come from a rich and pretentious background. Sometimes I wish we really were sisters. Not only because that would explain this uncanny resemblance between us but also because she’s my family in every other sense, so why not in the traditional sense too.