Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 149510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
I see Scottie watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t seem to steady my breathing. She reaches over and squeezes my hand.
My fingers tingle as she applies pressure, and I stare at the front of the room.
“My big brothers have agreed to be my partners for today, good sports that they are, even though I’m pretty sure neither of them has ever read The Winter’s Tale before…or read anything, for that matter.”
Remington and Flynn both laugh, and my whole body shakes with the need to get the hell out of here. Seeing three of my brothers here, in the flesh, with the irony of my dad’s sick sense of fun names said out loud for all to hear, I want to crawl out of my skin. My dad probably thought it was poetic, starting all our names with the same letters as the kids we didn’t know about, but it’s not cute when the situation is as fucked up as this—it’s bullshit.
Scottie squeezes harder, and I do the only thing I can do without making an obvious scene; I squeeze her hand back.
If I can make it through this fucking class, I can finally free myself from the powder keg of this secret. It’s only one page of my dad’s journal, but I know it’ll be enough. The passage I’ve chosen is unmistakable.
“King Leontes has no trust for anyone in his life. His wife, his best friend, even his newborn by proxy—because of that, today, we’ll be exploring the idea of the opposite with our group members.”
Remington chuffs. “Pfft. Who wouldn’t trust a baby?”
Ty laughs. “See. I told you he hadn’t read it.”
Flynn smiles at the floor, and I have to work to keep myself from grinding my teeth down to nubs. I hate that I feel this way, but I can’t help it. Everything my siblings and I’ve been through has been for nothing. We could have been like this.
Scottie smiles at the brothers, but I don’t miss how closely she’s watching me too. I never wanted to put her in the position, but I can’t seem to help it.
I’m unbearably jealous of the life I didn’t get.
Scottie
Finn’s skin is an ashen pallor the likes of which I’ve never seen before. He looks sick and distraught and like every bone in his body is being broken, one by one. Ten times worse than he did fighting an ex-UFC fighter in a dark, dingy basement.
He stares intently at Professor Winslow and his brothers, his jaw grinding with every word they speak at the end of class. He squeezed my hand so hard I had to hold my breath as they explained the trust assignment—meant to be the antithesis of King Leontes’s treatment of his wife Hermione in The Winter’s Tale—and never stopped glaring through the entirety of their trust falls. When we finally got up to do our own with Nadine, she said she could only be the one falling, not catching, because of her bum arm.
Finn finally broke character when I nudged him and laughed, but now, he’s back to mean mugging.
“All right, guys. I’ll see you Thursday. Don’t forget to focus on the theme of trust in relationships as you’re working on The Winter’s Tale project for the next couple of days. We’ll be moving on to something else when we come back.”
“We won’t be here,” Remington, Professor Winslow’s older, incredibly handsome brother, says, making Ty and Flynn laugh.
“Class dismissed!”
Nadine jumps up from her seat and takes off like her ass is on fire, but Finn sits there staring while everyone else is packing up.
“Hey,” I finally whisper, now that we’re without an annoyingly eavesdropping cheerleader audience. “Are you okay?”
Finn’s gaze jerks away from the brother trio at the sound of my voice, and it takes a couple of seconds for his eyes to actually focus on me. “What? Oh. Yeah. I’m good.”
I nod but slow my own backpack packing to wait for him. I might be late for communications since it’s a haul to Hawkley, but that class is basically a joke anyway. I have a perfect grade in there from the one assignment we’ve done so far.
The room is pretty much empty by the time he gets his things together, and I can tell he’s waiting for me to leave to finish entirely.
Something doesn’t feel right, but without an actual reason, I can’t insert myself any more than I already have. We’re the opposite of friends with benefits. We’re friends with intense privacy issues.
I zip up my backpack pocket and sling it over my shoulder, saying a firm goodbye in the hopes that it’ll knock whatever this is out of him. “I better go because I have another class, Finn. I’ll see you later?”
He nods, staring at the large desk at the front of the room, so with a sigh, I finally turn and leave. I get out the door and ten feet down the hall before the singing adrenaline in my veins pulls me up short, and I dive into a side hall to wait yet again. It’s almost a full minute, but when he comes out of the classroom finally, his head is down and his steps are quick. He doesn’t notice me.