Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 22478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
I told myself I’d do something like that when I retired, but then one day I looked at my bank account and realized I didn’t have to wait. I could afford to do it now.
So, I quit my perfect job in the perfect city and sold my perfect condo.
My grandmother let me move in with her on her hobby farm outside of Warwick and I bought this old school bus to convert into a skoolie.
“How are you even going to convert this monstrosity?” she asks while grimacing at it.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say with a smile.
All I’ve done so far is buy the battery and electrical system, but I’m learning new things every day. Tomorrow, I’m going to start taking out the seats with my grandfather’s old tools.
There’s a lot to do, but I’m so excited for all of it. I’ve never felt so alive.
“You’ll figure it out, huh?” she says with a sarcastic shrug. “Just like that. You’ve never even held a hammer and you’re going to make a house on wheels?”
I know she’s just looking out for me in her own Carly way. She just doesn’t see my vision. That’s okay. Maybe one day, she will.
“And where are you going to go?”
“I’ll just drive,” I say with a grin. I can already feel the clean mountainous air on my skin. I can hear the scratchy radio and feel the excitement of rolling into a new place and not knowing what to expect.
“Are you sure you’re not on drugs?”
I laugh. She doesn’t.
My family are all lawyers, so I’m used to them arguing until they win. It can go on for a while, so I kneel down with the battery pack and start fiddling with it while she continues.
“What about a boyfriend, huh, Jemma? Did you think about that? How are you ever going to meet a guy who’s not busless?”
“It’s not like I met anyone in New York,” I tell her with a bitter taste in my mouth. “If I can’t find a guy in a city of eight million people, it’s hopeless anyway.”
I didn’t always think like that. I used to be so excited to meet ‘the one.’ The perfect man who would sweep me off my feet. I thought I’d meet him in New York City, but I’m twenty-eight and he hasn’t come along.
I don’t care. I’m over it.
I’m starting to think that ‘the one’ doesn’t exist. He isn’t out there. He never was.
“I’m doing this for me, Carly,” I tell her. “And I’m not looking for anyone’s approval. I spent my life doing things for everyone else’s approval and look where it got me.”
“An incredible career in the best city in the world?”
“It got me miserable. And I’m done being miserable.”
Grandma comes walking out holding a tray with three glasses of lemonade on it. I’ve never been so happy to see her.
“Carly, I thought I saw you arrive,” she says with a warm smile.
“Hi, Grandma,” Carly says as she goes over and kisses her cheek. “I just came to talk some sense into my sister.”
“It seems like she’s finally making sense to me,” Grandma says as she puts the tray down.
“You think this is a good idea?” Carly asks her in disbelief.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Grandma says. “Freedom on the open road. That beats being locked up in an air-conditioned boardroom all day.”
Carly looks like she’s trying really hard not to roll her eyes.
Grandma smiles at me and it gives me a boost of confidence. Carly takes after our parents, but I think I take after my grandmother. While I’ve been staying here the past week, I’ve realized we’re more alike than I ever knew.
“If I was a few years younger,” Grandma says, “I’d be heading out with you.”
“Grandma, she’s going to be taking dumps in a bus!” Carly shrieks. “What’s wonderful about that?!”
She’ll never understand. None of my family will.
I’m just built different than they are. It’s time to embrace it instead of trying to smother it down.
Living in the mountains, bathing in streams, eating wild fruits and berries—I can’t wait for it all.
It’s time to get started on making my dream a reality.
“Quit your yapping and pass me that hacksaw,” I say with a grin. “We have twenty-eight benches to cut out.”
Carly’s face goes white. “What do you mean we?”
two
. . .
Jemma
“Keep going and you’re going to be my customer of the month,” the guy behind the counter at the general store says as I add more food onto the counter. He’s about sixty years old with deep-set crow’s feet around his eyes and a large Adam’s apple that bobs in his throat whenever he talks.
I’m in a small Montana town called Caldwell. There’s a barber shop, which is also a used bookstore, a diner, a gas station, and this general store. It’s not much of a town, but the location is incredible. Stunning mountains and pristine forests stretch out as far as the eye can see. Some of the peaks are snow-capped and all of them are gorgeous. I can’t believe this place is real. It’s exactly what I had in mind when I was working on my bus a few months ago.