Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Patience shakes her head. She drops her hand away from her mouth and sighs such a heavy sigh that her whole body heaves with it. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just heard them fighting last night, and then I heard my mom say divorce. Over and over again. My dad doesn’t want it. He kept saying no. They were downstairs. They didn’t know I was awake up there, listening. Dedind is my home.”
Yes, we really live in a town with a population of a few thousand that sounds exactly like dead-end. But it’s not. It’s Dee-dind, named for the guy who founded it a long time ago.
We’re both facing each other now. I don’t remember twisting to her, but I did, instinctually. She puts her hand on my shoulder, and her touch does something to me that makes me feel like I’m dizzy, but all over my body. “I’m not going anywhere,” she states stubbornly like she has a say in it. “I don’t want to think of a part of the world without you in it. I don’t want to exist in that world.”
“You won’t have to. We’ll be together forever. I promise. I’ll do anything it takes. I’ll even marry you myself one day.”
“Ewww.” Her nose wrinkles, but she doesn’t laugh. It’s not a joke, and she knows that. “I don’t want to marry you. Gross. We’re best friends. You’re like a brother to me.”
“But I’m not your brother. Maybe one day we’ll fall in love. We’ll go from friends to more. That’s how my parents fell in love. They were friends and then high school sweethearts. Then, they got married as soon as they were done with college.”
Patience normally knows just what to say when I talk about my mom. She doesn’t get weird about her not being here anymore like some people do. “I don’t want you as a husband. You can’t be a husband and a best friend.” Patience might be wise, but maybe for once, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
“Yes, you can.”
She pulls a sour lemon face. “I would never want to kiss you. I don’t want to kiss anyone. Kissing is nasty. And the other stuff sounds so…scary. I don’t want to do that, ever. Not with anyone.”
“People get married for other reasons. Sometimes they get married because they have to.”
“That’s never going to be me. I’m never going to get married for any reason. I don’t want to date either. I just want to be me. I’m making a resolution right here and now.”
“That’s silly. You can’t make promises as a kid for the rest of your life. What if you change your mind? Are you going to hold yourself to some funny standard just because you said something wild when you were young and didn’t understand what it truly even meant? I used to say I’d never go swimming because I hated the water. I was scared of it.”
She nods, but it’s clear that she thinks swimming isn’t the same thing as marriage. “And now you swim every day,” she says anyway.
“Yes.” I swim because my mom started me in it. She loved it herself, and her love for it was passed down to me. My dad says she’s up there watching me, and when I swim, I think about making her proud.
“She gave you the wrong name, you know. She should have named you Poseidon.”
“I guess she wanted one of those catch-all gods. You know Apollo was the god of pretty much anything and everything.”
“She always said you were the light of her life. That’s why she named you Apollo. Because she knew when you were born that you were the sun.”
We’ve both heard that so many times, and even though my mom isn’t around to say it anymore, my dad makes sure to tell me often so I’ll never forget.
I turn my eyes back up to the roof of the treehouse as though I can see the sky and the sun beyond—the very sun I’m named for. I want to change the subject. I know there’s no sun out there today, and knowing it makes me sad. I guess thinking about my mom actually makes me sad. Not all the time, but it does right now.
“If you don’t want to get married one day, that’s okay. I’m still going to promise you that no matter what, I’ll always be here. That I’ll always take care of you.”
Patience can be bossy when she wants to be, but right now, I think we’re both feeling tender about things, so she doesn’t put on her know-it-all face. She just traces a pattern on the floorboards. “I can take care of myself. And who would want to be with anyone anyway? Marriages don’t last because men are always walking around the house farting non-stop.”