Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Or?”
“Or you’re flunking out.”
“I’ll take flunking for two hundred,” I mocked him as if life were a game of Jeopardy!.
Mom’s favorite show was Jeopardy!.
I’d watch it with her every day after school.
There I was again, thinking about the dead.
Principal Gallo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Milo, what would your mother—”
“Don’t.” I cut in with a slight headshake. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
“I get that losing Ana was hard for you. Trust me, I know.”
“You have no idea.”
“She was my sister, Milo. I lost her, too.”
I looked at my uncle and felt a pit in my stomach. Of course I knew he’d lost her, too. It was why I showed up to his office weekly for the conversations about how I was screwing up my life. It was why I sat down in his uncomfortable chair. It was why I stared at his godforsaken carpet.
Because he had her eyes.
He had her smile.
He had her genuine concern, too.
I both hated and loved him for those reasons.
He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. That was how I always knew it was time to talk to my uncle instead of my principal. When the glasses came off, Principal Gallo became Weston.
“I’m worried about you, Milo,” he expressed.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. Your grades are slipping, and you’re failing three classes, almost four. Ana wouldn’t want this for you. I don’t want this for you. You need to take the tutor.”
“What if I flunked out? Would that be the worst thing in the world?” I was tired of caring. I didn’t have much energy left in me to care.
“You’re not going to flunk out. I refuse to let that happen.”
“Unfortunately for you”—I placed my hands on the arms of the chair and pushed myself up from it—“you don’t get to make that choice for me.”
I started walking toward the door to leave his office, and he called out to me, but I ignored him. He called again. I still ignored him.
“She left you a letter,” Weston said.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight. I turned to face him. “What?”
“Your mom…she left you a letter.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes,” he urged. “She did. I’m supposed to give it to you at—”
“Give it to me,” I ordered. My cold, tired heart started rapidly pounding.
Weston shook his head. “I can’t. I’m supposed to give it to you on your graduation.”
“Who the hell cares? She’s not here to control the timeline. Give it to me.”
“I won’t.”
“Weston—”
“It was her dying wish to me, Milo. I’m not going to disobey her request.”
“I hate you,” I told him.
Weston nodded. “I know.” He placed his glasses back on and sat straighter in his chair. He was now Principal Gallo again. Splendid. “You’ll also have to attend all your classes to get the letter.”
“Was that Mom’s rule, or are you just being a dick?”
He didn’t answer my question. “Your tutoring starts today, Milo—three o’clock at the library. Please don’t give her a hard time. If you do, she’ll report back to me.”
Damn tattletale. Why did I get the feeling that woman would become the bane of my existence over the next few weeks?
As I was about to leave, I huffed. “Do you know what’s two weeks away from today?” I asked him.
“Yes.” He grimaced. “The first anniversary of Ana’s passing.”
Anniversary.
What an odd word to use for such a tragic situation.
He pushed his glasses on top of his head. “How are you handling it?”
I didn’t reply because I wasn’t handling it at all. I was mentally shutting down every single second that passed by me.
I walked into the hallway, into a tornado of students zipping past me, yet I felt as if I were moving in slow motion, treading through quicksand that sometimes I’d consider allowing to swallow me whole. I wondered if other people felt that way—as if they’d rather sink away into the earth, never to be seen again, than keep walking mindlessly through the fog.
She left me a letter.
What did it say?
Did Weston keep it in his possession?
That thought made me want to break into my uncle’s house and flip the whole thing upside down in search of said letter. If I knew my uncle well enough, he probably had those things in a locked safe.
I wasn’t in the mood for school that day, but honestly, I wasn’t in the mood for school any day. Yet I was in the mood to get said letter from my uncle at the end of the semester, so I dragged myself to my English class.
“So nice of you to join us, Mr. Corti. I was beginning to think you forgot what this classroom looked like,” Mr. Slade mentioned as I walked into class fifteen minutes late.
“You know me. Can’t avoid a trip down memory lane,” I muttered. I tossed my backpack to the side of my desk and slid into my chair, already disappointed that I chose to show up to class. My uncle got into my head about that damn letter my mother left for me.