Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
The fact that that was our very first kiss and that I partially — okay, seventy percent — did it to prove a point to his best friend is not something that I care to think about a lot.
I look at it this way: we had to kiss sometime, right? So we did.
Plus I’d been holding out for weeks.
Which is another point in Lucas’s favor. That he’d waited for me.
He’s still waiting for me.
Because even though we kiss and make out regularly, we haven’t taken it to the next level. We haven’t done it yet. Mostly because, again, I’m the hold-up.
Maybe I’m terrified of the pain that comes with losing your virginity, and trust me, I’m plenty scared of that. Maybe it’s my age; I’m only fifteen. There’s no need to rush. Or maybe it’s something else, but I’m not there yet.
And Lucas doesn’t pressure me.
So yeah, there’s no reason to not love him and so I do.
And if that pisses my boyfriend’s best friend off then that’s just a bonus.
Because as much as he hates me, I hate him more. I hate him with every fiber of my being. I hate my boyfriend’s best friend so much that it makes me sick.
Hatesick.
~Echo
Who: The Bandit
Where: The second-floor bedroom in the manor on the Davidson estate
When: 12:37 AM; three years ago, on Echo’s fifteenth birthday
She loves him.
She’s in love with him. And he’s in love with her.
What the fuck is love?
What does it mean, to be in love?
Does it mean that she’s it for him? That he’ll stay with her for the rest of his fucking life? And that he’ll die for her, kill for her? Does it mean that he’ll do anything to see her smile at him or have her light brown eyes light up when she looks at him?
What the fuck does it mean?
I wanted to ask him that when he told me the joyous news. I also wanted to do a million other things that I’ve been increasingly thinking about ever since he started going out with her.
The usual, you know.
Punch him in the face. Break a few ribs. Put him in the hospital.
Kill him.
But I didn’t.
Even when he told me to behave.
To fucking rein myself in when she’s around because as it turns out, she’s going to be around for a long, long time. He wants me to be his best friend and support him, and make it less obvious that I hate her.
Hate.
Now that I know something about.
I know what it feels like to hate. To loathe, to detest, abhor, abominate and fucking despise.
It’s like you’re burning up.
It’s like you’re being slashed open, constantly bleeding.
Every second of every hour. Of every day.
And since you’re in constant agony, you want others to be in agony too.
You want others to suffer as well.
You want her to suffer.
Because she’s the one, isn’t she?
She’s the one who has managed to ruin the one good thing in my life. She’s the one who makes me want to kill my best friend every time she smiles at him, every time she gets close to him, laughs with him, talks to him, touches him.
It’s because of her that I can’t stand my best friend’s happiness. I can’t stand to be around him.
I can’t stand to be his friend anymore.
So yeah, I know about hate. I know how sick it makes me.
How sick she makes me.
Fucking hatesick.
CHAPTER SIX
Two years ago. Bardstown
At first I ignore it.
The tap tap tap echoing around my room.
It must be the tree just outside my window. The branches have a habit of knocking on the glass when the weather turns windy. My friends, when they come over, have a tendency of getting scared, but when you practically live in the middle of the woods, you become used to it.
But then the tap tap tap almost becomes a boom boom boom, and I jump out of my bed, my heart in my throat.
This does not sound like a tree at all.
This sounds like…
Like someone is knocking at my window.
Like someone is rapping their knuckles on the glass.
And I realize that I can see them.
Whoever they are.
The drapes are closed and I’m used to seeing the blurry silhouette of the branches swaying gently. However, tonight I can see the silhouette of someone else as well.
The head, the shoulders.
The freaking arm that reaches out and bangs at the window once more, this time louder and more insistent. Like they’re getting impatient at the delay.
Oh Jesus Christ.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I fucking do?
The knock comes again and instead of running toward my door and dashing out of my room, I dash toward the window. Before I even realize it, I’m tearing the drapes open and then I’m… numb.
I’m dazed. I’m dreaming.
I am, aren’t I?
This has to be a dream.