Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94639 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94639 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Hey, Harper!” Melissa calls me over to the table she’s sitting at. “Did you hear about the Halloween party?”
“No, who’s throwing it?” I sit and set my tray of food down, then place my cell phone next to it just in case Landon texts.
“Cohen and Dale,” she says.
“At Boston University?” Most of our friends who graduated last year ended up either going to the local community college or Boston University.
“Yeah. The theme is Halloween.”
“Like the holiday?” I laugh.
“No.” She rolls her eyes. “The movie.”
“Gotcha.”
I check my phone for the fiftieth time, only to find there’s still no response from Landon. Not that I expect there to be. His days tend to start early in the morning and by the time he’s done with his conditioning and practice, it’s late.
“Will you stop checking your damn phone?” Melissa says, snatching it from my lap. “All you do is check it all day long. Have you not seen Landon’s social media? The guy is living his life, and you should be too.”
She types in the password on my phone and pulls up my social media. I haven’t even thought to check it since Landon never really posts on there.
“There.” She holds my phone toward me, and staring at me is a picture of Landon with a bunch of guys and girls. I recognize some of them as his teammates, but I don’t know who the girls are. The picture is innocent, and there’s no indication he’s cheating on me, but it’s enough for me to realize we can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep waiting for the next text while he’s following his dreams.
“Here’s another.” She shows me another photo of Landon laughing at something someone is saying. He’s dressed casual and appears to be at a bar or restaurant of some sort. Again, there’s nothing wrong with the picture. He’s not doing anything wrong. But at the same time, it feels like it’s all wrong.
She swipes to the next photo. It’s a selfie of Landon and some girl. “This is on his page?” I ask, my heart full of shock and hurt.
“No, but he’s tagged in it. It’s on hers.”
Melissa swipes to another picture. It’s another group shot. Landon is looking at the camera, but the girl is looking at him. I don’t even know her, but I can see hearts in her eyes. My stomach tightens as I stare at the picture until Melissa swipes to another one and then another one.
“Okay, I get it.” I grab the phone from her and stand, needing to get away and clear my head. We still have one more period left, but I leave early. The drive home is spent with the images of Landon running through my head. And by the time I get home, I’m so worked up, I’m practically in tears. Needing to talk to him, I drop to my bed and dial his number. Of course he doesn’t answer, so I send him a text that we need to talk. Then I wrap myself up in my blanket and cry myself to sleep.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing, but before I can answer it, it stops. I look at the time and see I’ve slept through the entire afternoon and it’s now almost ten o’clock. Great, I’ll probably never fall back asleep.
The phone starts ringing again and Landon’s name flashes across the screen. My stomach knots, remembering the pictures I saw earlier. This conversation is going to be difficult, but it needs to happen, I tell myself before I press answer.
“Hey,” I say, already hearing the tremble in my voice.
“Hey, Harp. I got your text. Everything okay?” Landon’s voice sounds worried, but at the same time rushed, like he saw it and had to stop what he was doing to call me. When I’m about to speak, someone shouts his name, and he muffles the phone, yelling back that he’ll be right there. It makes me want to postpone what I need to say, but at the same time, it solidifies it.
“Harper, you there?”
“Yeah, you busy?”
“No, just got back from practice, and the guys and I are going to go grab a bite to eat.”
“Okay, well, I’ll make this quick then…” I swallow the lump in my throat and take a deep breath. “I think we should break up.”
There’s silence on the other end, and for a second, I worry he hung up on me, but then he speaks. “Did you meet someone else?” The raw emotion conveyed in every word he speaks forces the dam in me to break open, and the tears I’ve been trying to hold back, to fall.
“No.” It’s hard to speak. My throat has a lump in it, and my emotions are making my voice crack.
“Then what’s going on?” he asks, his tone low and breathy. All I want to do is hug and kiss him, but I can’t. We can’t because he lives eleven hours away. And even once I graduate, the chances of me getting to go to a school near him are slim. Every day we’re prolonging the inevitable, and eventually one of us is going to get hurt. I can’t speak for him, but I’m already hurting.