Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
She unfolded and recognized it with a sad pang. The last note he’d ever sent her. She’d never shown it to anyone. Even though she’d cruelly taunted him by sharing his sweet little love rhymes with Shar Bridges and her ilk, this letter had felt too personal, and she’d experienced an instinctive need to protect his privacy along with his dignity.
Daff,
I know my letters and poems have embarrassed you, and I’m so sorry I put you through that. I wanted you to know that I like you and I didn’t know how else to show you. I love coming to school every day and seeing your beautiful smile. I wish you would have shared one with me . . . just once. It would have meant the world to me.
I won’t bother you again.
Yours,
Spencer
Daff wiped a tear from her cheek as she reread the letter. He had been about seventeen at the time, and her fifteen-year-old self—the selfish, vain girl she had been—hadn’t truly understood what she had meant to the quiet boy who rarely spoke with anyone other than his brother. Even after becoming something of a sensation on the rugby team in his senior year, he had still remained quiet and removed from his peers.
Daff read each slip of paper, bittersweet tears sliding down her cheeks as she thought of the boy he had been, of the man he was. She was a fool for letting him go. She knew it.
She regretted it.
But she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to fix it.
“I don’t know why I can’t have a TV in my room, all the other kids at school do,” Charlie whined, and Spencer hid a grin at the unfamiliar high pitch in her voice. She was starting to behave like a typical young girl, concerned about the way she looked, her hair, what the other kids at her school had. She had started attending the local high school just three weeks ago and seemed to be settling in nicely. She even had a couple of friends.
She would be moving in with Spencer next week, and her room was nearly complete. She’d surprised him by going pink and girly. Somehow he’d expected something darker, more Goth. But now that she didn’t have to hide her femininity, she was embracing it. It was odd to see her in skirts and dresses. With her short hair and skinny frame, they didn’t quite suit her, but she was starting to gain weight and looking healthier by the day. Spencer loved that she felt safe enough to behave and look like a girl again. And—while frustrating—he enjoyed her displays of temper and adolescent sulks, which meant that she felt secure enough in her position here not to tiptoe around on her absolute best behavior.
“You don’t need a television when we have a perfectly good one in the living room,” he said, addressing her latest grievance.
“Yeah, but I probably won’t want to watch the same crap you watch.”
“Hey, watch the language,” he warned her, and she rolled her eyes.
“Crap is so not a swear word.”
“Yeah, well, I say it is.”
“Oh my God. Your rules are so arbitrary. Why do you have to be such an old man sometimes?” He merely raised a brow to that, and she huffed dramatically.
They were at Spencer’s place having some lunch after an “epic” shopping trip, for some “absolute, must-have” last-minute finishing touches to Charlie’s room. Spencer didn’t see what was so essential about a pod chair, or a weird pink fur rug, or whoever the hell that sulky teen boy in the ridiculously expensive framed poster was, but he’d had a blast getting the items for her. And the tasks took his mind off Daff—and the huge gaping hole she had left in his life and his heart.
God, he missed her. He felt so lost and lonely without her. Being with her on her terms didn’t seem so bad compared to the constant, dull ache he now carried with him. With Daff he’d felt a sense of belonging, and not having her in his life made him question whether the traditional bonds he sought were as important as he’d once believed they were.
“So are you and Daff not, like, together anymore?” Charlie’s subdued question completely threw him, and he blinked at her dumbly.
“I—uh . . . well, we weren’t really together,” he explained awkwardly, and she took a sip from her soda before daintily picking up a french fry and biting it in half.
“You seemed like you were.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
Charlie dragged the other half of her french fry through some mustard, drawing patterns on the plate, and shrugged.
“You guys looked at each other the way Daisy and Mason do, and they’re getting married. And you look sad lately.” The last bit was mumbled self-consciously, and her eyes dropped to her plate. She was clearly uncomfortable making such a personal observation about him, while Spencer was more than a little shaken up that his overwhelming grief had been so evident to this young girl who barely knew him.