Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Fourteen and fifteen, embracing as the towns and cities change in a blur around them. And I’m certain—they will never change.
Hailey and Oliver will endure like all the Tinrocks and Graveses. Even if this job fails, even if they’re run out of Victoria, they will be together until the very end. Like they were together in the very beginning.
The only question is me. It’s why she was staring at me. I have more to lose. Being associated with Hailey and a baby out of wedlock—especially while the town thinks my older brother is interested in her—it’s gossip fodder. Salacious. Reputation damaging.
Not just to her.
I imagine Oliver doesn’t care. He’s a playboy. No one would be shocked if he knocked up a girl here.
And me…
I stare down and almost smile. I’m always revolting against what people want me to be. Had it been up to my mother, I’d be married to a girl from an upper-class family and we’d have four kids by now.
I’m not worried about what people will think of me. Shame is for those who can’t be proud of their convictions, and I’ve never been ashamed of being with Hailey. I’d never be ashamed of having a baby with her.
I’m deathly concerned about her being around my brother now, but that’s another conversation. Because when Oliver rests her feet on the floor, when she turns to me, she looks uneasy.
Oliver places a hand on her head and tells me, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” I say lightly. “You’ll always be in her life. Whether you’re the father or I am, you’ll still be there.”
“Jake…?” Hailey hesitates.
“I wouldn’t take him from you,” I assure her. “It’d be wrong for you two to lose each other.”
Her eyes glass. “I…” Her face says, I don’t want to lose you, too.
It crushes me, realizing she believes I’m going to walk away from her and this baby. Then I breathe deeply, and I see her during wintertime.
Twinkling stars carpeted the night sky while we sat on my catamaran sharing a woolen blanket over our shoulders. She’d been interested in Stonehaven, the history of the Wolfe family, and I’d taken her to my boat since I had a perfect view from the dock.
I didn’t think she’d bring binoculars. There ended up being less spying through the windows and more talking. For hours and hours and hours, we discussed her life and mine, from the simple joys of reading to the shared guilt we had over the people we loved. I felt responsible for not helping Kate sooner. I felt responsible for my mother’s pettiness and cruelty. She felt responsible for what happened to Phoebe in Carlsbad. She felt responsible for finding answers about all their origins, their birth parents, before it was too late.
She was losing time.
I was losing hope.
And somehow, we found both that night in each other.
The frigid air was almost unbearable, and we’d eventually have to go inside the catamaran, but we still lingered. I didn’t want to leave that moment.
I didn’t want to leave her.
Then her gray eyes bounced between me and the mansion on the rocky island. Back and forth.
“What is it?” I smiled down at her.
“Being here with you just reminded me of a poem.” Her cheeks went flush, and not just from the cold.
“Well, now you have to tell me.”
“Forget I said anything. I, uh…I’m just thinking too much.”
“Emily Dickinson? The poem about the sea and her dog,” I guessed. “I don’t think it has an official title but I’ve always called it ‘By the Sea.’ ”
She smiled almost instantly. “Kind of close.”
I smiled back. “Theme or year?”
“Both poets were alive at the same time. ‘By the Sea’ actually rhymes with…” She trailed off, her blush spreading as it dawned on me.
“ ‘Annabel Lee’?” I held her gaze while she searched mine rapidly.
“Do you…do you know it?”
I didn’t just know it. I had recited it as a child for school, and every line was ingrained in my memory.
“ ‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea,’ ” I whispered, glancing out at Stonehaven, then back at her. “ ‘That a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee. And this maiden she lived with no other thought’ ”—I watched her eyes pool with emotion, and my heart filled past capacity—“ ‘than to love and be loved by me.’ ”
Hailey stared into me so deeply, hanging on to these words I spoke like a fairy-tale romance I was bringing to life for her, and I wanted it to exist for me. The haunting, unending love of Poe’s “Annabel Lee.” That night it felt like it was written for her and me.
We stared at each other for so long, I would’ve believed time froze. I didn’t think. I just felt. And I kissed Hailey for the first time that night, under the stars, with the words of her favorite poem hanging around us like icicle dreams.