Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
“Who cares how she’s doing? Besides, it’s funny. Laugh a little. She’s not even on our level.”
Our level? As if Cara and I were the same in any way, shape, or form. That made my rage grow stronger.
“We’re not on the same level,” I muttered, walking toward the door.
Cara dashed in front of me and blocked my exit. “I swear to God, Aiden, if you walk out of this room to go check on that loser instead of having the best night of your life with me, then you are dead to me. Do you understand me? We are over if you leave. You’ll be dead to me. DEAD!”
I swallowed hard and stood tall as I cocked an eyebrow and locked my eyes with hers. “RIP.”
She gasped, stunned. “You’ll regret this, Aiden Walters. Mark my words. I’ll make sure of it.”
I pushed past her and left the house. I started running home as nerves shot through my system. The moment I approached the Joneses’ house, I repeatedly rang the doorbell.
“Is she okay?” I asked, my voice cracking when it left my throat as Hailee’s parents answered the door. They looked up to see me, and the hurt in their eyes made my own chest ache even more. Fuck. What kind of assholes would hurt someone as soft as Hailee? She was the definition of kind. At that moment, I wanted to track down everyone who posted, reposted, and mocked my best friend. I wanted to tear them limb from limb and make them feel like the complete trash they were.
“Not right now,” Penny said, her eyes glassed over. I wasn’t surprised that Penny was on the edge of her emotions because her daughter was her heartbeats. When Hailee hurt, Penny hurt even deeper. That was what moms did. They felt their child’s pain as if it were their own.
“Can I talk to her?” I asked.
“Did you know?” Karl asked. His brows were knitted, and his face was stern. Unlike Penny, he wasn’t sad. No, he was pissed off. “Did you know they were going to mock her?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Going to that party was your idea. I swear to you, Aiden, if you knew—”
“Karl,” Penny cut in, grabbing him by the fabric resting against his forearm. She looked at me and frowned, seeing the hurt in my eyes that Karl couldn’t see because he was too busy dealing with the hurting of his daughter. She shook her head. “He didn’t know.”
“How can you tell?” he asked.
I respected Karl more than my own dad. When it came to being a father figure who could be soft and gentle yet stern and tough, Karl had it in tenfold. My father wouldn’t know how to be soft and gentle if his life depended on it. I really appreciated that about Karl—how balanced he was as a parent. But, at that very moment, if he didn’t get out of my way and let me go see his daughter, I was going to bum-rush past him, and I wouldn’t even care if he fell to the floor.
“Because he’s Aiden. He’s her person,” Penny said, moving out from in front of the door. She nodded toward Hailee’s doorframe and gave me a broken smile. “So go check on our daughter, all right, Aiden?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, nodding once.
Karl gave me another hard look, but he didn’t say anything. He stepped to the side, which was more confirmation than any words he could’ve given me.
I placed my hand on Hailee’s door and turned it as my heart twisted in my chest. As I opened it, I found her sitting in a floral dress, cross-legged, with her back toward me as she stared out her bedroom window.
“Jerry,” I said, closing the door behind me. She didn’t move an inch. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Her hair wasn’t in an afro puff. It was styled with perfect loose curls. Even from only being able to see her from behind, I knew she looked beautiful.
She didn’t say anything.
I shifted around in my sneakers. “Can I sit by you?”
I waited a few seconds, and when there was no reply, I frowned. I bent down, untied my shoes, took them off, walked over to her, and sat beside her, cross-legged. Because when you were a best friend, you didn’t need an invitation to be there for your person. You just showed up and stayed.
Her makeup was ruined as tear stains left marks from their departure from her eyes. Still, she looked good. I’d seen Hailee in some of her worst states. When she had food poisoning from our favorite Chinese buffet a few years back, she looked like the walking dead. She couldn’t do anything except walk to the bathroom, where she’d thrown up nonstop.
I held her hair back during her vomiting, and then she’d crawl back to bed, and I’d sat with her talking about bullshit that didn’t matter just so she didn’t have to be alone.