Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
My feelings haven’t faded. If anything, I want Allie even more now than I did then because I know the ache of living without her all too well.
“What do you want me to say, man?” I ask Alexei. “I saw her. It hurt. That’s all there is to it. She’s moved on and none of it matters after all these years.”
“Is she married?”
“No.”
I told my mom after Allie and I broke up that the only thing I wanted to know was if she got engaged or married, but nothing else.
“So go talk to her.”
I stand up and towards the grass in Aunt Jo’s backyard, which is getting long. I need to mow it this afternoon.
“I can’t just show up at her house and ask to talk to her,” I say, agitated. “Not to mention that I don’t really want to.”
“Yeah, you do.” Alexei, tilting his head back and forth like a kid singing that kissing in a tree song. “Where does she work?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not showing up there, either.” I scowl at him through my phone screen. “Look, I have to go.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m not talking to you about this anymore.”
Alexei’s brows shoot up in amusement. “The fuck is going on with you, bro? You never get this worked up about anything.”
“I’ve gotta go.”
“What, is it time to knit with your mom?”
“You’re a dick.”
He laughs. “Go talk to her. Hey, invite her to come out with us for your birthday if you want.”
“You are never meeting her.”
“I bet she’d love me. Graysen could mediate a talk between you guys and you could work things out.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
Alexei waves and gives me a shit-eating grin. I flip him off and end the call.
Fucker. I regret ever telling him about Allie.
With a heavy sigh, I walk back in through the sliding glass door to Aunt Jo’s kitchen.
“Go on, Whoopi!” my mom says to the TV screen.
“She knows.” Aunt Jo nods vigorously and points at the TV screen. “Whoopi’s been around that block before, she knows!”
I love my mom and aunt dearly, but they’re starting to drive me crazy. And I miss my routine at home. Normally I’d already have a workout and a shower in by now.
“Hey, I’m gonna head out for a run,” I tell them. “You guys need anything before I go?”
Aunt Jo is so wrapped up in Whoopi she doesn’t even respond, and my mom just gives me a dismissive wave.
I walk outside and stretch in the front yard before starting out at a light jog. After a mile, I’m approaching downtown Greentree Falls, which has hardly changed, but looks different now. I guess it’s me that’s changed.
After spending my childhood living in several different countries with my parents for my dad’s work, Greentree Falls was a culture shock for me. I’d lived in Quebec, Paris, Nairobi and Stockholm by then—all very different cities, but the same in that they were much larger than Greentree Falls, Wisconsin.
I stood out as a black kid in Greentree Falls. I wasn’t the only one, but there weren’t many of us. It was my mom’s roots here and my athleticism that helped me fit in quickly.
In high school, we complained that there was nothing to do for fun on the weekends. We’d run footraces through cornfields in the dark, swim in the lake or ride four-wheelers on Cade’s family farm. Cade’s dad invited me on many fishing and hunting trips with him and Cade, patiently showing a city kid with no experience how to bait a hook and safely use a shotgun.
I couldn’t wait to get out of this little hick town back then. I hoped to make it to the NHL, where I’d be guaranteed a home base in a big city, and I’d have the money to travel for fun in the offseason.
Allie and I would lie on a blanket in my mom’s backyard on summer nights, looking at the stars and dreaming about the future we had ahead of us.
College. Since I was a year ahead of her in school, I’d do my first year at Penn State while we maintained a long-distance relationship. Then she’d join me there, and we’d borrow money for her tuition if needed, because my NHL prospects were strong.
We’d decided we would get engaged my senior year of college, but I was so in love I couldn’t stick to that plan. I already had a silver engagement ring with a little speck of a diamond hidden in a drawer in my dorm room. I was going to propose to her as soon as she graduated from high school.
But two months before then, everything changed. She lost her parents and found herself the sole guardian of her six-year-old nephew and three-year-old twin nieces.
Her only family then was her sister Jenna, who left town immediately after the funeral services. The Douglases were good people who had a lot of friends in Greentree Falls. The town rallied around Allie and the kids, friends taking turns with the kids every day so Allie could finish her last two months of high school and graduate. My mom took them a day every week, and she’d bring dinner over for Allie and the kids another night.