Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I’m starting to find that being with Allison quiets every fucking thing I’m forced to face. When I’m with her, I don’t think about my endless failures. I don’t worry about my mom or Henry, the fact that I’m lying to everyone I know, or the fact that I have zero direction in life. And it’s here, with Allie in my bed, that I have the best sleep of my life.
I wake up to the sound of knocking, followed by an earthquake. No, not an earthquake. It’s Allison frantically shaking me, her face a mixture of panic and…anger? “What the hell are you doing in my bed?” she whisper-shouts.
I yawn, stretching. “It’s actually my bed.”
“Allie?” Lo’s voice comes from the other side of the door.
“Go!” Allie shoves me out of bed and I hit the floor with a thud.
“Calm the fuck down,” I mutter. It’s just Lo. “You keep freaking out every time we’re almost seen together and I’m going to develop a complex.”
“Just a sec!” Allison shouts back, shooting me a look. She stands, pulling on a pair of black sweatpants from her drawer before moving toward the door. She looks at me over her shoulder, motioning for me to go into the bathroom.
“You owe me,” I say, standing my ground. She glares, but impatience wins out and she mouths fine. I send her a wink before closing the bathroom door.
“Hey,” I hear her say. “Sorry, I was trying to find some pants.”
“Everything okay?” Lo asks.
“Yeah?” Allison responds, but it sounds more like a question.
“Have you seen Jess? There’s a drunk guy on my couch and he’s not in his room.”
Shit, I forgot about Sullivan.
“Nope,” Allie says, and Jesus Christ, she has to be the worst liar I’ve ever encountered. I roll my eyes, reaching behind me to flush the toilet before I open the door. I make a show out of adjusting myself, like I just went to the bathroom. Take notes, Allie. This is how to lie convincingly.
“I was taking a piss. What’s up?”
Lo eyes me skeptically, then looks between the two of us. Allie picks at her nails, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here. Real smooth.
“Dare and I are leaving for a while.”
“Okay.” Since when does she give me a play-by-play of her day? “Have fun, I guess.”
“I mean, like, for a week.”
“As in a vacation?” I ask, my eyebrows jumping in surprise.
“I guess that’s what you’d call it.” Her mouth breaks into a wide smile. “I’ve never been on a vacation.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“It was a surprise.”
Ah, now it makes sense. Dare has been trying to get her to go away with him, but she always has an excuse, usually involving work or me.
“Jake’s covering my shifts, but they could use you if you want to make a few bucks,” she says. “I’m leaving money on the counter for food. I don’t care if you have people over, just don’t break anything, don’t let anyone puke inside, and stay out of my room. I’ll have my phone if you need me.”
“Jesus Christ, Lo, would you get the fuck out of here already?”
She rolls her eyes, moving through Allison’s room to meet me in the doorway. She reaches up to wrap her arms around my neck and kisses my temple. I lock eyes with Allie over Lo’s shoulder. She’s watching us curiously. She does that a lot, I’ve noticed. As if she’s always trying to figure people out.
“Love you, asshole,” Lo says, pulling back before mussing up my already-disheveled hair.
“Love you, too.”
Lo worries her bottom lip, and I can tell she’s overthinking. She might be living the good life with Dare now, but she still hasn’t seemed to figure out that she’s allowed to do things for herself. She doesn’t know what the fuck to do with herself now that she doesn’t have to take care of everyone around her. Leaving for school was supposed to give her a chance to live her life. She sacrificed everything for me, and even though I’m not exactly a team player, I took the lacrosse scholarship.
I did it for two reasons. The first being that I didn’t want to let her down—look how well that turned out—and the second being that I didn’t want her to put her life on hold any longer. I didn’t want to be her crutch. You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take years of conditioning out of the girl.
There are three kinds of people where we’re from. The kind who never get out, the kind who are lucky enough to get out and stay out, and the kind that get out for a while but ultimately end up back where they started when they realize they weren’t meant for more. Lo always said I’d be the successful one—that it was me who’d dig us out of our world full of drugs and poverty and crime. She thought I’d be the one with the future. She didn’t realize that it was her all along. I felt like a fucking imposter when I tried to play the part. I fall into the last category.