Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Get my hopes up?” I finished the sentence she obviously didn’t want to.
“Exactly.”
“They’ll come.” I lifted my brows at her skepticism. “They will. They promised. Besides, they booked a hotel already.”
“I just don’t want to see you disappointed. Again. I wouldn’t exactly call them reliable, which is why I think you would benefit from dating someone who actually is.” She glanced pointedly at my paper.
“Nate has yet to let me down.” I stared at the empty numbers on my list, my brain spinning with my favorite word—possibilities. Somewhere with a beach. Somewhere Nate could kiss me in the water. That’s what I pretended was in that scratched-out portion of the letter.
“Oh, and it’s Lauren,” Serena said.
“Who?”
“The woman who’s running for Congress. Eliana Lauren.”
“I’ll look her up.” The least I could do was see if she was worth voting for.
I tapped my pen next to the number one, then wrote a single word.
Fiji.
By December, my collection of letters had grown exponentially, as had my stress. Law school was even harder than I’d expected. Finals left me almost no time to read, and I wasn’t exactly holding up my end of the conversation with Nate.
And true to Nate, he didn’t say a single word about me ghosting him for nearly a month, just kept writing, telling me how proud he was that I was conquering law school.
Christmas had been an awkward extravaganza of overpriced gifts and awkward, two-pat hugs, but January arrived, and I got my rhythm back.
Never apologize for doing what you need to. That’s what Nate said when I got a letter at the end of January.
February, I managed not to screw up a relationship for all of three weeks.
By the fourth, I cut him loose. It just happened to be the same week Mom and Dad canceled their trip to DC for my birthday in favor of opening Dad’s new Chicago offices.
I didn’t know Nate’s dad, and he’d never told me why he feared becoming like him, but I was starting to feel the same way about my own. I didn’t need to be my parents’ number one priority, but making the top ten would have been nice every once in a while.
“Again?” Margo asked in March on our weekly call.
“Hey, I gave it four dates,” I told her, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear as I folded the last of my clean laundry and put it away. “Not all of us are happily married at twenty-two.”
“You’re not twenty-two,” she reminded me. “Not until tomorrow.”
“You get my point.” I hung my favorite shirt and put Nate’s hoodie in the drawer beneath my bed. “I just don’t see a reason to string someone along when I know it won’t work.”
“It’s never going to work if you don’t give it an actual shot,” she lectured.
I glanced at the box of letters on my desk. “Totally agree with you there.”
A loud giggle sounded from the living room.
“Sounds like someone’s having a good time,” Margo said.
“Serena has her boyfriend over, which is why I’m hiding in my bedroom.”
“And how are classes?”
“Fine, Mom.” I smiled when she scoffed. “Really, I’m oddly caught up, and it’s Friday night. I have the entire weekend to binge TV or—”
“Write Nate,” Margo suggested in a singsong voice.
“You’re starting to sound like Serena.”
“Serena adores Nate. I’m . . .” She went quiet.
I tossed my empty laundry basket on the floor of my abysmally small closet. “Just say it.”
“I’m withholding judgment until it’s a little clearer if you guys are some destined fairy tale or if it’s the initial trauma of the crash that bonded you.”
“And how are your classes, psych major?” I asked, not that I hadn’t wondered the same thing once or twice. But the way I missed him all these months later had to mean something more. Between our letters and the short bursts of time we’d had, I almost knew Nate better than I had dickface Jeremy. Letters didn’t leave a lot of space for bullshitting the way empty movie dates did.
“I’m barely passing one of my classes,” Margo admitted.
“Like actually barely passing?” I asked, pausing. “Or in danger of getting a C?”
“They’re basically the same thing.”
I grinned. “No, they’re not. But seriously, is there anything I can do?”
“Besides moving back to the tundra of upstate New York and personally taking me to coffee every afternoon so I can see your pretty face?”
“Right. Besides that.” The doorbell rang, but I flopped onto my bed, knowing Serena would get it.
“Nope. Just listen to me whine on our calls.”
“Always happy to do so.”
“Izzy!” Serena called out.
“I have to let you go; I think our dinner just got here.” We said our goodbyes, and I ended the call.
“Izzy!” Serena shouted again.
“Coming!” I hoisted my soft flannel pajama pants up higher on my hips and zipped up my Georgetown hoodie over my braless boobs so I wouldn’t freak out Serena’s company in the two seconds it would take to snag my dinner and fade back into the cave of my room.