Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
It didn’t matter that it was legal in our state, or that I had plenty of other friends who recreationally used. She was a cheerleader, just like I was a player, and we had standards to uphold. There were rules we had to follow, plain and simple.
She was the kind of girl who broke all the rules, who tested every boundary to see just how much she could get away with.
And for that reason alone, I knew I had to stay away from her.
This was a huge season for me. Coming off a decent rookie performance, this year was my chance to really break out, to become a starting receiver that Coach and our quarterback could depend on. I wanted to surprise people. I wanted to be picked up after a few weeks in every fantasy league around the nation because I was the talk of every sportscaster.
I wanted to solidify my spot, secure a giant contract, and set myself up for life.
Set my family up for life.
As if the thought had conjured them, my phone buzzed in the pocket of my joggers, Mom’s face lighting up the screen when I pulled it free.
Just like it always did, my heart ached at the sight of her smiling face. It was a picture I’d snapped the weekend I convinced her and Dad to let me take them all out to a lake house in Montana. Mom’s honey-gold eyes were tired in the photo, her smile a bit strained from the hassle of traveling. It wasn’t an easy feat with all the machines and comforts we had set up at home. But she was beautiful. She was strong. And with the sunset burning a brilliant orange and pink behind her, she looked like the angel I felt she was.
Yeah, I was a mama’s boy. But any man who had a mom like mine would find it hard pressed not to be.
“Hey, Mama,” I answered, keeping my eyes on Sebastian as he jogged over to another little boy around his age and asked if he wanted to play with his rocks. Sebastian always had a bag of rocks on him.
Weird ass kid.
God, I loved him.
“Hello, my handsome son. You have a second to chat?”
“You know I always have time for you.”
She paused, and I didn’t have to see her to know she was smiling, to know her eyes were likely glossing with tears. I didn’t know why in the hell she thought I’d ever reach a point in my life that I’d be too busy for her, that I wouldn’t put her, Dad, and Ginny first. It was like it always surprised her, like she was waiting for me to just up and move on into a life that didn’t include them.
“Your sister just hit level four in Baldur’s Gate and is very excited. She wanted to show you…” Mom paused, and I knew she was trying to recall what likely sounded like another language to her. “The below shadow world? Oh, no, sorry, that is clearly not correct.”
I chuckled at the sound of my sister in the background. It wasn’t her voice, but the one from the speech-generating device she had. And I could tell by the way she kept hitting the button to make the voice repeat itself that she was annoyed with Mom for mucking up the terminology of the game.
“Geez, Mom, get it right,” I teased.
“Hush, you.” She listened again, and then corrected herself. “The underdark before the mountain pass. Whatever that means.”
I smirked. “Can you hold the phone up to her ear?”
Mom let me know when she had, and I let out a low whistle before putting my phone down in my lap long enough to slow clap. “Damn, sis,” I said when I picked it back up. “I guess you got tired of owning all those newbs on Apex Legends and had to give yourself a real challenge, huh?”
Just wait. I’ll be at level twelve by the end of next month.
“I don’t doubt it,” I replied to the artificial voice. I wished I could hear hers, wished more than anything that I could give up my own ability to speak if it meant she could get her voice back. I wondered what she’d sound like now, as a young woman instead of a little girl. It killed me that I couldn’t even remember her voice before she lost the ability to use it, that the memory had been stolen from me over time.
I’d trade it all for her if I could — the money, the fame, the high of playing a game in a sold-out stadium.
But the universe, or God, or whoever was running this show didn’t present that as an offer, no matter how hard I prayed for it.
Ginny was eight years old when she was diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis. It was Labor Day weekend, and what had just seemed like a cold quickly turned into a respiratory illness, and then into something none of us could have ever prepared for.