Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 128417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“No, I don’t understand. I really wanna meet your family—I’m dying to meet your family.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not possible—not when my heart is on the line like this.”
A little voice inside my head is screaming at me to tell her my heart is on the line, too, but the words don’t come. I swallow hard, forcing down the lump in my throat again.
There’s an awkward silence.
Her eyes are glistening with obvious hurt.
“Kat,” I finally say. “Maybe I should have mentioned it. I just... Please believe me—you’re my fantasy sprung to life.”
Her jaw tightens. “Yeah, I’m the fantasy you don’t want ‘tainting’ your real life when you move back home.”
Shit. That was a not-so-subtle reference to my application to The Club, wasn’t it? Yeah, it was. Because I don’t want this shit to taint my real life, I wrote in my application. Oh, God, this is a complete disaster.
“Kat, no,” I say. “You’re not a Mickey Mouse Rollercoaster. Now you’re just being crazy. Please don’t do this. You’re spinning out of control.”
“I’m not doing anything but agreeing with you. From here on out, we’re gonna do things Josh-Faraday-style. The future doesn’t exist. There are no expectations, no commitments. All we have is right now. YOLO.” Her lip is trembling. “If I wanna stay, I’ll stay. If I wanna go, I’ll go. There’ll be nothing to keep us tied to each other but however the wind blows on any given day. Just the way you like it.”
40
JOSH
Iflip on the TV in my hotel room and quickly turn it off again.
What’s wrong with me? Am I really this fucked up?
I told Emma the magic words, didn’t I? Which means I’m capable of saying them. But Emma gave me a lot more time than this—ten times more time than this.
But what am I thinking? There’s no comparison between Kat and Emma. I never felt this white-hot passion with Emma—this electricity. How the hell does Kat expect me not to fuck up when I constantly feel like I’m gripping a goddamned electric fence around her?
I get up and look out the window of my hotel room, a glass of Jack Daniels from the mini-bar in my hand. I’ve got a perfect view of the Space Needle from my room. It’s lit up like a Roman candle at night.
I could have stayed at Jonas’ house tonight, of course, but I was too embarrassed not to be staying with Kat to ask him. Plus, Jonas looked so happy tonight, I didn’t have the heart to bring him down with my pathetic sob story. Jonas is the one who’s supposed to cry like a big fat baby to me—our relationship doesn’t work the other way around.
“Let’s take a break for a couple days—see how we’re feeling then,” Kat said when I walked her to her door earlier tonight. “Maybe I’ll realize I’m overreacting; maybe not. I’m just too hurt to think straight right now. I think I need some time to regroup and figure out what I’m feeling.”
I take a swig of my whiskey, shaking my head. How did things go so wrong? I was on top of the world when I picked Kat up tonight. I couldn’t wait to see her—the same way I always feel when I’m away from her. I couldn’t wait to take her to the fish market tomorrow morning to sing the “Fish Heads” song with her like a couple of dorks. And I was losing my mind about meeting her family tomorrow night, too. And, most of all, I was chomping at the bit to fuck her on her Hello Kitty sheets.
And now it’s all gone. Poof. And here I am, yet again, where I always am, sitting in yet another hotel room, another drink in my hand, looking out at yet another lonely cityscape.
I turn on the TV and flip the channels. Sports. Local news. I flip around and around and finally land on a music station. Lenny Kravitz is singing “Fly Away.” Hey, at least something’s going right for me tonight.
I sit down in an armchair in the corner, lean back with my whiskey, and listen to the song. Yeah, Lenny, I agree: let’s fly away to anywhere but here—you and me, bro—to a place without stress and responsibility and worry. A place where I won’t have this thousand-pound weight on my chest at all times—a place where I won’t feel so fucking lonely all the time. And so fucking guilty. To a place where I’m not constantly being crushed by shit I can’t control and feelings I can’t express and memories that haunt me.
I run my hands through my hair. I’ve never thought of this song as sad before, but, motherfucker, it’s making me wanna cry. Fuck this shit. I turn the channel to the next music station, only to run smack into “Little Lion Man” by Mumford & Sons. They’re in the midst of singing the chorus and it’s like they’ve written the words for me. Kat told me her heart is on the line tonight, didn’t she?—and I really, really fucked it up.