Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I snorted. “Y’all don’t need any help from us. You got this.”
The senior’s chest puffed out and her chin raised. “You’re right. We do have this!”
I winked and watched her go before turning back to my sister. “I need your full support on this, because I have a feeling this is going to really kick my ass.”
She threw her arm around me. “I can’t believe you’re pregnant.”
“Can’t you?”
She snorted. “I guess you’re right. I mean, it’s bound to happen, seeing as the two of you have zero control when the other is in the room.”
She wasn’t lying.
“Do you think you two could ever work it out?”
“I want to say yes,” I admitted. “But there’s a lot of trauma in our background, Eddy. It’s like…” I swallowed. “I’ve been hoping for years he’d come around. That he’d come after me. But he never did.”
She pulled away from me and stared into my eyes for a long moment before she said, “Did you know that he came to every one of your games that were within either a six-hour flight, or four-hour drive, since you started playing professionally?”
I blinked. “He worked himself to the bone. Putting in all kinds of hours so that he could pay for those flights. And just sayin’, but he didn’t take his daddy’s plane, either. He did it all in secret.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. “He did?”
“He even flew to Tokyo for a week to watch you play in the last Olympics.”
My heart ached. “He did?”
“He’s been to every single out of country game you’ve ever played, too,” she said. “And until he started this new job as a park ranger, he’s never really done anything but stay in. I never even see him out and about the town. He’s always working. Or he’s at home. Or he’s flying somewhere to watch you play.”
My stomach ached.
“To say that he didn’t come after you would be a lie. Because he did. All you had to do was look up into the stands and see.”
My stomach rolled, and I had to will myself not to rush to the trash can and throw up.
“And I never see him anywhere with his mom. Every time I happen to run into her, she always talks about how busy her son is, and how he never has time for her. She always makes sure that you’re where you’re supposed to be, so she knows that he’s not spending his time with you.”
“I hate her,” I said.
The only thing I could say.
I couldn’t examine all those other things right now.
“She hates you, too.” Eddy snorted.
I groaned. “This is going to be a nightmare.”
“It is.”
“Do you think I should fight for him, Eddy?”
She studied me with the same eyes that I was staring back at her with.
It was so long that I started to squirm.
“I think you’ll live the rest of your life miserable if he ever moves on.”
What felt like an electric shock jolted through me at her words.
Pain took life on my face, and she nodded as if she understood what her words had done to me.
“Do you want him to be happy, Nettie?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Do you want him to be happy with someone else?” she pushed.
I couldn’t help the shaking of my head. “No.”
“Then it’s time to start living your life, Nettie. Stop putting it on hold. Stop denying that he’s it for you, and you’re it for him. Be happy. Have a baby. Get married. Live happily ever after. You know you’re not going to find that with anyone else but each other.”
She was right.
When the thought of him with someone else literally felt like I couldn’t breathe, I needed to examine how I wanted the rest of my life to look.
Because one day he would give up.
One day, he’d stop trying so hard.
One day, he’d move on, and I would have nobody to blame but myself.
Eight
Why do you use such sound logic and reasoning when I’m just looking for someone to be as overdramatic as I am?
—Nettie to Boone
Boone
She moved in later that night, and by the time I was lying in bed a couple of hours later, staring at the ceiling, I wondered if I’d made the right decision.
Separate rooms.
When we’d been in the same house, we’d shared a bed.
And now, she was moved in, and I was under the same roof as her, with her not in my arms like she should be.
I fisted my hands and pressed them both against my eyes, rubbing so hard that my eyes hurt.
This was torture.
This was utter torture.
I was…
A sound had me pulling my hands away from my face and listening hard.
I was fully expecting not to hear the sound again.
But there was another creak.
And another.
Footsteps moving toward my bedroom.
My breath hitched and stalled in my lungs as she came to a stop right outside my door.