Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Something kicked loose inside me. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, looking off into the distance. “I’m saying that I know I have no influence over your life decisions, and that I know it’s crazy, but I really do want you to move to Colorado with me, if there is any ounce of you that actually might want it, too. Even if you think it’s impossible for you—with work, and with your Dad’s house—I’m just going to lay it out, in the open, because I can’t take it anymore. I want you there with me. And I know you want it, too, you’re just so, so afraid.”
“Don’t say those kinds of things to me,” I whispered, my throat already tight. I felt as if I’d just been hit with a Mack truck at the same time as winning the lottery. It was such a sudden overload of pure feeling, deep down into my bones, that it was like a breaker switch had been flipped inside.
“Why the hell not, Blue?”
“Because you don’t know what could change,” I said, the words spilling out of me, surprising me. “You have no idea if you’re still going to feel these things a month from now, a year from now, five years from now.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know this is real,” he said. He stared me dead in the eyes. “You know I am yours. In every sense of the word.”
The back of my throat was tightening. I looked away from him.
“And even aside from that—who cares?” he said simply. “No one can predict the future. Ever. For anything. We could get swept away by a Wizard of Oz tornado twenty minutes from now, for fuck’s sake. All I know, with complete certainty, is that you’re the most important person I’ve ever known, and I’m an idiot for not realizing how I truly feel about you much, much sooner.”
“How you truly feel?” I repeated, not knowing if I was trying to ask him a question or just point out how impossible it seemed.
“I told you. I’m not falling in love with you,” he said, squeezing his arm around me. “I already am in love with you. I probably have been for longer than I even realized, but I was just too stupid to see it.”
My heart felt like it was somewhere up near my throat.
It’s too good to be true.
Tristan always falls into things fast.
He’s just overloaded with emotion.
This man could make you give up everything you have here in Kansas, then crush your heart into a thousand pieces if you let him.
The endless loop of doubts circled through my mind like they were racing to defeat me. My leg was bouncing.
“You’re not stupid, Tristan,” I said, because it was the only thing I could respond to without overloading again. “I hate it when you put yourself down.”
“I hate it when you don’t trust me,” he said, sliding his arm off of me, leaving my shoulders cold.
I missed his touch more in that moment than I ever had before. His statement damn near broke my heart. I felt like I was in a tornado right now, but it was inside me rather than out in the world, ripping apart any semblance of stability I had.
I was silent for a moment. Then another. And before long, I’d been sitting there, paralyzed, not knowing what to say for who knew how many minutes.
“I can see my house from here,” I finally said, barely knowing what I was saying. “My elementary school, middle school, high school. The road where I broke my ankle while riding bikes. My first apartment. My first renovation contract. The hospital—the hospital where Dad died. My whole life out there in front of me. All of it lived here.”
Tris was looking out toward the horizon still, but all of the fight was gone from his eyes. Somehow it was even worse now, seeing something closer to hopelessness in his gaze. A hopelessness I had put there, just because I couldn’t figure out how to handle all of this. I wasn’t built for emotions like these, and Tris had certainly been the only person who’d ever made me feel even half of them.
“I know,” he whispered, letting out a breath. “I know you’re Kansas-born, Kansas-bred. I know you’d never actually want to leave. I was stupid to even suggest moving.”
“Stop calling yourself stupid,” I said firmly. I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. “What I was about to say is that I… I know that the best part of my life won’t be out here, very soon.”
His eyes flickered toward me, then back out to the view again. “You don’t have to say that.”
“It’s the truth, and we both know it,” I said. “I loved Jade River. I know I’d love Colorado. But how can someone uproot their whole life to… to follow their friend?”