Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Girls she’d wished would ask her out but that she’d never tried to ask out. Jobs she’d never been offered because she didn’t make her interest known.
Damn.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Carys backed her against the side of the pool and kissed her.
“Do you think I could…do that?”
“Of course you could, babe. Tana just invited you.”
“I guess I mean really do it. Like…when I was hanging out with Veronica the other day, with the bees, I was imagining what if I did live here and I grew lavender to scent her and Helen’s candles, and it seems like such a dream. But…”
She could picture how it would go. Her parents, devastated that she wanted to be so far away from them, feeling awful because she didn’t want to join the business. Adelaide, feeling abandoned. Ash, her best friend who needed someone to have fun with, to vent to, as his mom slipped further and further away.
“I don’t want to let everybody down,” she finished.
Carys’ eyes were sympathetic, but her voice was sure. “What about letting yourself down?” she said gently. “What about staying someplace that doesn’t nourish you, just because you think you owe it to other people?”
Greta’s throat tightened. That just was harsh.
“They’re my family, and they depend on me,” she said.
“Do they? Do they really depend on you, or do you have this idea that you have to stay and it’s not really about them?”
Carys ran a hand over Greta’s wet hair, but Greta pulled away.
“It’s not like that,” she muttered.
Carys just looked at her steadily, ready to listen, but her question hung between them. Greta didn’t have any proof. Didn’t have anything to hold up to Carys and say See, they need me that she hadn’t already shown her.
Greta lifted herself out of the pool, and Carys let her go without comment. She grabbed a towel from the stack. Her legs prickled with goose bumps, and her stomach was in a knot as she walked inside. She poured herself a glass of Veronica’s lemonade and gulped it down. It was delicious. She poured another and went to find a bathroom, needing a moment to collect her thoughts.
The bathroom was tiled in iridescent cobalt blue from floor to ceiling. It felt like being inside a wave. When Greta sat down, the toilet let out a beep, and she nearly jumped out of her wet underwear.
The toilet was some fancy toilet-bidet combination with multiple settings. Who the hell were these people, and why did they need toilet settings? Greta punched a button on the control panel and was rewarded with a jet of warm water to the crotch.
She snorted and hit another button. A soothing hum emanated from the toilet, and the seat got warm.
“Oh my god. This is absurd.”
She stood and sent a picture to Ash, who thought even asking for food without one of the listed ingredients made you high maintenance. Then she sat down on the toilet and downed the second glass of lemonade.
She’d thought Carys understood. Understood how hard it was, how much pressure her family put on her, how much they expected. But apparently she thought Greta was just lying to herself.
When she got up, the toilet let out a noise that sounded like it was sad to see her go.
“Get in line, buddy,” she slurred and giggled to herself.
Reluctantly, she left the world of blue tile and almost immediately ran into the pig.
She swore and contorted herself to avoid falling on top of it. Instead, she pitched to the side and landed in a heap on the floor. Scribble stuck his snout into her armpit, gave a snuffle, then collapsed on top of her instead.
“God damn it,” Greta muttered resignedly.
Which, of course, was when Carys, Matthew, and Veronica walked into the room.
Matthew’s laugh boomed in the quiet of the house and startled Scribble, who attempted to get to his hooves, but he couldn’t get purchase on the floor.
“I did not come to this party to watch some white girl from Maine get Mason Vergered,” said Veronica and turned on her heel.
Greta didn’t know what that meant. She scrambled to her feet, but the room spun and she found herself on the bed.
“I got it,” Carys’ voice said from what seemed like far away.
Then warm hands were pushing her hair back.
“You okay?”
“Mmf,” Greta said.
“You have some lemonade?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Helen put twice the usual amount of moonshine in,” Carys said.
Greta’s head spun. It took her a moment to remember who Helen was and what moonshine was. Moonshine. So pretty. The way it looked gilding Carys’ brown curls.
When she looked up, she saw that her hand had found its way into Carys’ hair, the damp curls dotted with pearls of water that plocked onto the bed.
“Greta, I like you a lot. I think you’re so lovely and sweet and intensely hot. But I’m never gonna lie to you about this stuff. So I’m sorry if this wasn’t the right time to talk about it, and I’m ready to whenever you are. Okay?”