Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Then she whispered, “I won’t tell. I promise.”
My tears from earlier burned in my eyes and I buried my head in Eilidh’s hair, wrapping my arms around her so tight. She smelled fruity and fresh. Clean. Warm. Like the home she was brought up in. I shook. Mum had barely been around for most of my life, so I didn’t know why being left alone was hitting me so hard.
But I felt like there was this crack in my chest and if I didn’t stop it, it would only grow until I fell completely apart.
Eilidh held on tighter, as if her arms could stop the trembling.
“I hate her,” I confessed harshly.
She didn’t offer platitudes. “I hate her too.”
Somehow that made me feel better.
I didn’t know how long we stood there, but I finally remembered I was holding my best friend’s wee sister like she was a life jacket. In a way, she was. All the Adairs were. Lewis and I had different friends at primary school and it wasn’t until we were thrown together in a class at high school that we realized we had so much in common.
From that moment on, he’d adopted me into his family. I’d had many a dinner at his house and hung out there all the time. Eilidh was part of that. Her silly crush on me annoyed Lewis, but as much as she was still only my best friend’s wee sister, Eilidh made me feel seen.
And today she’d surprised me.
I released her and she reluctantly let go.
With her standing so close, I searched her face, needing reassurance she wasn’t going to tell anyone about this. As I did, I realized for the first time that Eilidh Adair was a teenage stunner.
Before … I recognized she was pretty in a vague, distant way. But it was the first time it hit me she was more than pretty.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised again. Quiet. No drama. “This isn’t mine to tell, Fyfe.”
Grateful, I nodded. “Thanks.”
“Right.” She swung around and gestured to the room. “Let’s get this place sorted.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I’m going to.” Eilidh pulled her phone out of her back pocket, hit the screen a few times, and then pop music blared from it. She grinned. “Need some tunes to help us along.”
I rolled my eyes, my lips twitching, but I let her have that.
Then we set about tidying up my house.
We broke for a snack and a drink and we chatted in my kitchen about an audition she had in Glasgow in a few weeks. She’d been accepted into a prestigious summer drama school down there and had gotten some real acting work out of it already. Her parents weren’t happy about the audition, because the agreement was that she could only take on acting jobs during the summer. But Eilidh could charm most people into doing anything, so I wasn’t surprised she’d talked them into letting her go.
We were finishing up fixing my room when I noticed the time. “Come on, I need to get you home.”
“I can ride back myself.”
“But you won’t.”
We rode our bikes out of Ardnoch to a wee tiny place on the outskirts called Caelmore. It was where Lewis and Eilidh’s architect dad had designed homes for himself and his brothers and sister. Their five homes sat spread in a row overlooking the North Sea. I didn’t know of many siblings who’d want to stay that close to each other in adulthood, and I thought it was pretty cool that Lewis and Eilidh got to grow up surrounded by aunts and uncles and younger cousins.
We stopped at the top of the long, narrow country road that led into their small family estate. Eilidh hopped off her bike, and I had to straddle mine to keep my balance as she threw herself at me.
When she pulled back, she kept her hands planted on my shoulders and stared unabashedly into my eyes. With all the maturity of a wise forty-year-old, she said, “You have to know that your mum’s actions aren’t about you.”
Renewed anger flushed through me. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Your mum is a deeply selfish person, Fyfe. That’s not on you. You’re amazing.”
Her soft eyes made me wary. I gently nudged her away. “Eils.”
She released me with a sigh and a sad smile. “I know you think this is some stupid wee girl crush, and it’s never bothered me that you think that. But it bothers me today. Because I need you to know that you’re amazing and that’s why I like you more than anyone else. You’re brave and smart. You stand up for people.” I assumed she referred to the time I chased off those boys who were bullying her when she was about eleven. Her hero worship of me had started after that. “And next to me, you’re, like, the most ambitious person I know. One day you’ll get out of here and you’ll do amazing things because you’re destined to.”