Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Taking my sketchpad outside, I sat on the egg chair and began to draw. I didn’t know how much time had passed when the egg chair swung and the blanket was lifted as June sat down. We didn’t speak at first. I just continued to sketch and she wrote. I used my foot on the ground to rock us back and forth. Eventually, the moon high above us, my arm began to ache.
When I looked back at the sketch, my heart swelled against my ribs. It was just like the picture Michaels gave me. But I felt my and June’s connection more with this drawing. Could feel June’s hand in mine, feel the stretch of my lips as I smiled at her.
“I love it,” June said, and then took the photograph off the table beside me. She was quiet until she said, “I like the way I look at you.” She lifted her eyes to me. “And the way you look at me.”
“Ditto,” I said, and June chuckled quietly at my one-word response. Now she knew it was when I was feeling too much but didn’t know what to say. I’d dropped all acts around her since our talk. June now got all of me, he real me—the rawness and scars.
It was liberating.
The rocking of the egg chair was hypnotic as June said, “If we hadn’t come here…” She trailed off briefly, and I rolled my head on the cushion of the chair to look at her. She met my eyes. “If we hadn’t come to the ranch, do you think we ever would have met?”
I frowned. “I like to think so…why?”
June looked out at Ginger. “As much as we connect, you’re a football player and I’m a bookworm. Outside of this ranch, we exist in very different circles. Even at UT, you would be in the athletic dorms.” June took a deep breath. “Girls like Josie would have been the ones to garner your attention, not ambiverted wannabe creative writers like me.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if we weren’t in this place, if we would work.”
I hated the words coming from her mouth. “We would.” I shifted in our seat and took hold of June’s hand. “I adore you, June.” I cleared my throat, my pulse beginning to race. “You’re my soulmate.”
Her eyes shimmered, pools of chocolate in the moonlight. “I think that too—I know it. But sometimes, when my insecurities get the best of me, I wonder if that’s always enough.”
I didn’t know what to say. We had told one another we were in love. We’d bared our souls as much as we could.
“I’ve been writing about us being together at college,” she said in explanation, and my focus immediately went to the notebook. I wanted to read it. “If we get to UT—or hopefully when—you play football and I write, how will we work?” June faced me again. “You’ll be at football parties I would struggle to enjoy. I’ll be in writing groups.” June exhaled a defeated sigh. “I don’t know, just writing what I have been, then seeing your teammates today, it’s reminded me that outside of this ranch, we are completely different people.”
“Opposites attract,” I said, and June’s sadness lifted a fraction. “Look at me,” I said, and she did. Maybe it was her turn to have a wobble now. I held her hands tighter. “I get that we may have problems, issues, fights even.” I pretended to shudder at that, and June smiled a little. “All couples do. But I will tell you one thing that I know is fact.” June tilted her head. “I will choose you every time, in every universe. I choose you for me completely.” I nudged my chin at her notebook. “Write us falling out, struggling, but don’t for a second believe that that would be it for us. Will it be difficult at times? Yes. But nothing has been as difficult as fighting cancer, and I think we’re doing a pretty fucking epic job at that—despite the immunotherapy not working and our cancer progressing, that is.”
June burst out laughing at my dark attempt at humor.
I wanted to be sure she understood me though: “If you need to express your feelings, worries, and doubts about our happily ever after by giving us tough times in your writing, that’s fine. It won’t upset me in the here and now. But know that I will never give up on us. In this life or the one you are creating in this notebook.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. “Okay?” I rasped.
“Okay,” she said and then, releasing my hand, gave the notebook to me. “Then read,” she said, and tucked herself up in the blanket and cuddled in beside me.
Sitting back in the chair, with my heart in my throat, I began to read.