Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21886 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21886 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
“I’m busy,” he grunts.
“Oh,” I say as I look at the ground. “Well, I’ll be there if your plans change.”
He doesn’t say another word so I lean down and pet Charlie when he follows me over. “Take care of him, okay?” I whisper into my old friends’ floppy ear.
Charlie licks my hand and there’s nothing else to do, but leave.
So, that’s what I do.
Chapter Two
Colin
I grab a log that’s wedged in the melting ice and yank it out with a grunt. “How could she come here?” I grumble as I slam it onto the chopping block. “After all this time? Like nothing ever happened? Like she didn’t tear my heart out of my chest and crush it in her hands?”
I look at Charlie for answers, but he’s just lying on the porch in the sun and watching me with those big soulful brown eyes.
“You’re probably on her side, aren’t you?”
He wags his tail.
“Aw, screw the both of you.”
I grab my ax, yank it up, and bring it crashing down on the log as hard as I can. It explodes apart.
The dull blade sinks so deep into my chopping block that I have to put my boot on it and yank the ax out with a grunt.
“Goddammit,” I mutter as I slam another log onto the block.
Why the hell did she have to come back? Just when I was starting to get over her. Well, not over her, not even close. I’ll never be over Molly Bryant. But after all these years of longing for her, I was finally starting to feel like I could breathe again.
And now she’s back, probably with a boyfriend—an amazing girl like her will never be single for long—and what, I’m supposed to be cool with watching them walking hand-in-hand in town? How does she expect me to watch that and not wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until the whole damn Sheriff’s office is trying to pull me off?
I slam my ax into the log, splitting it in two as I imagine his pretty boy face next to hers.
You don’t know if she has a boyfriend… What if she’s single?
The voice of reason echoes in my head and I drop the ax with a hopeful feeling blooming in my chest.
Maybe she came back here to rekindle what we had. Maybe she’s not over it either…
“I need to get out of here,” I whisper. “Charlie, want to hike to the lake?”
He looks at me with those lazy brown eyes, not looking interested at all.
“Come on, man. I need some moral support.”
I slap my thigh and he reluctantly gets up and slowly lumbers over.
My mind is on my girl as we hike through the forest on my property. Charlie is smelling everything as we go and I have to keep waiting for him to catch up.
I still remember the first time I saw her. We were in grade three when her family moved to the Greene Mountains. I was playing on the monkey bars before school started when I saw her dad’s blue car pull up. She stepped out of the back, looking like she was fighting back tears.
It was like someone pulled the rug out from under me when I saw that gorgeous girl. It was like my whole life had changed in an instant.
My hands slipped off the bars and I dropped onto the sand, staring in awe as her parents brought her to the school. I can still remember the moment perfectly—how her brown hair shined in the sun with her cute little green headband. She was wearing the school uniform with a purple backpack slung over her shoulder. I was instantly in love. I remember feeling like the ground was shaking under me. Like my whole world was flipped upside down.
I never took my eyes off her until her parents walked her into the school.
“Who’s that?” one of the boys asked.
“Looks like some dumb new kid,” Brendan said, trying to make everyone laugh.
I snapped. I turned and punched him right in the face as hard as I could. He dropped onto his ass, looking up at me in shock and terror.
“Don’t ever call her dumb again,” I warned with my blood boiling.
That landed me in the principal’s office where I came face to face with Molly Bryant for the first time.
Her parents were filling out forms in the principal’s office while she waited outside. She didn’t look at me as I walked in.
I approached her like you’d approach a unicorn in the wild—slowly, carefully—like one wrong move and she’d bolt.
I wanted to say the perfect thing. I wanted to say something that made her fall in love with me since I was already hopelessly in love with her.
“Hi.” It was all I could manage to come up with. But it seemed to do the trick.