Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Frustrated.
I’m literally, not figuratively, always frustrated.
Maybe it’s a control thing.
Maybe it’s because I know I’m helpless in my situation and I hate that feeling.
Or maybe that’s just what happens when people try to follow their dreams only to find out—they don’t actually exist. Not in the way you think, at least. It’s a smokescreen, there is always, and I do mean always—a cost.
I turn the corner and collide hard with a girl, because of course that’s how my day’s going. She tumbles to the ground, one of her heels flies off of her foot and her hair goes directly into her lipstick.
“I’m sorry!” I help her to her feet and grab her heel, then her leg and try to shove her foot back into it.
“Ya!” She grabs me by the hair and pulls my head back. She has tears in her eyes, smudging her makeup, tears stream down her cheeks. She’s beautiful. Maybe in college? I can’t tell, but at least a few years older than me. “What are you doing?”
“Helping?” I offer in a frustrated voice that sounds weaker than I actually feel. God, can I do anything right? “I’m sorry I wasn’t looking where I was going and—“
She jerks her foot away so fast I nearly fall as she puts the shoe on herself, then really looks down at me. “Get away from me.”
“Sorry.” This is not my day. Obviously. I get to my feet and dust off my pants again, how many times can someone fall in ten minutes? “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Her lower lip wobbles, it’s pretty and pink, full and enticing. She looks away.
I don’t know why I do it, but I pull her away from the hall and into one of the classrooms for privacy. There’s tissue on one of the desks, I jerk it out of the box and hand it to her.
She takes it abruptly, tearing part of the edges off, and they fall to the ground. She’s still not making eye contact with me. “I wish I could tell you it gets better, it doesn’t.”
“I’m used to it being bad,” I say with a lame smile that just really confirms how bad my day’s been. “I’m having a day as well.”
She straightens her white blazer, jerking it down with her hands at least three times before finally looking up, her brown eyes focus only on me and I have to wonder, is this all I wanted? Someone to see, just to see for once. Me. Not what they assume, not what they expect.
Me.
“Can we forget for five minutes?”
I frown, surprised. “I wish but that’s not how life works.”
Sadly.
“What if it did in this classroom?” She takes a step toward me, tears stream down her cheeks harder like she’s broken and nothing will fix her, I’m not touching the tears but I imagine they’re hot, that she feels each drip down her chin in a painful way my soul recognizes. “What if we could forget?”
I reach for her hand and grip it. Cold. Shaking. Scared.
“How do you want to forget?” I whisper.
She eyes me up and down. “A hug. Just give me a hug. Lie to me. Tell me it’s all going to be okay.”
Slowly, I pull her into my arms and awkwardly rub her back with both hands. They run down her spine in slow motion over and over again. “It’s all going to be okay,” I tell her just as she commanded in a tone that almost made me feel like I needed to say yes because she needed it more than I did.
We stand there for a few minutes, she finally relaxes against me. Her body slumps against mine. She’s hot just like her tears. I have no idea what possesses me to do it, but when I start to pull away from her, I lower my head and kiss her on the mouth. It’s a light kiss, nothing intense, but totally inappropriate.
She jerks back, covering her mouth with her hand.
Shit. “I’m sorry I just—“
She doesn’t let me finish. Her mouth collides with mine again. She tastes like cinnamon, my favorite flavor. I moan deep into her mouth, testing the way her tongue feels against mine. It’s not my first kiss, but it’s almost like she’s stealing secrets I can’t tell, she’s clearly more experienced, she shoves my jacket off my shoulders and runs her hands down the length of my torso.
She takes my breath away, a different kind of beautiful person that makes you think if you just keep kissing and letting them take your sins away, you might be ok.
I back her up against one of the hard desks, it screeches against the floor. I lift her onto it. I pull down her jacket, throwing it onto the floor and run my hands up her ribs, grazing her breasts through her shirt with my thumbs.