AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It is,” I say. “Especially crap like this. It’s like a different language, and I’m so busy trying to not mess up that I don’t absorb a single word of what I’m saying.”
“Let me see,” he says, holding out a hand. “I’ll give it a go.”
“You’re going to read to me?” I ask in disbelief.
“Why not? It’s raining, like you said.”
“You’re insane.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He takes the book and I lie down, feeling ten kinds of awkward. But pretty soon, I’m distracted by his accent, which is so sexy I don’t even care what words he’s saying. I could listen to him talk all night. After a while, the lull of his warm, low voice soothes me into a trance. I’m too busy focusing on that to get caught in my usual anxiety spiral, tossing and turning as I worry at the edges of every memory of the day and the one before, every word I spoke that might have been misconstrued, every action I took that might come back to haunt me.
A distant roll of thunder rumbles across the sky, and I huddle down under the blanket, listening to the rain on the roof and my sister’s breathing and Oliver’s voice until the comfort of all of it pulls me under.
ten
Now Playing:
“New Year’s Prayer”—Jeff Buckley
I wake to silence, instantly reminded that my mother is going to literally murder me when she finds a boy in my bed. I blink against the light assaulting my eyes and grope blindly across the bed, only to find it empty.
I sink back on the pillows, feeling like death itself. I should be happy he’s gone—and I am—but there’s a small sense of betrayal too. He didn’t even say goodbye.
I fell asleep while he was reading.
Shit.
I roll over, staring down at the empty sleeping bag beside the bed. My sister is gone too!
My heart stops, but before I can start screaming, Lily comes bounding in and leaps onto my bed on her knees. “Hey, guess what?” she asks, bouncing up and down in a way that makes my stomach roll.
“What?” I groan, kinda wishing Oliver had kidnapped her. At least for a day, until my head doesn’t feel like there’s a rhinoceros charging around inside trying to break out.
“I slept in your room all night,” she pronounces, like it’s some huge accomplishment. She flops down on the pillows and throws her hair out of her eyes. “I had this dream, that I was being chased by a cow!” She starts rambling on about her dream in great detail, wriggling like an eel in her excitement and inability to sit still.
He left while I was sleeping.
And even though I knew I’d never see him again, it still feels wrong somehow. Incomplete. Like that loose end will just hang there in my life forever, a what if, a thread that doesn’t attach to anything.
Finally Lily runs off to find breakfast, and I drag myself up and shower, feeling about as lousy as it’s possible to feel without being sick. I stumble downstairs and into the kitchen to find Meghan at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, chatting away with Uncle Seamus about some culinary adventure he had in Austin or Ashville or Nashville.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Uncle Frederick says, coming up behind me and snagging the coffee pot before I can.
“What?” I ask, my heart skipping. “I’ve been here all night.”
“Wasn’t talking about you, honey,” he says, kissing the back of my head and replacing the coffee before turning to Meghan, who’s still wearing the same dress she had on last night. “Do I need to have a talk with you about behaving like a young lady?”
“Little late, Uncle Fred,” she says. “I haven’t behaved like a lady since I was… Well, ever.”
“I’m a lady,” Lily pipes up from her plate of toaster waffles.
They laugh, the sounds crashing around my head like someone’s banging pots and pans together. I pour a full cup of coffee, throw some creamer in, and collapse at the table.
“Not sure I’m the one who needs a lecture,” Meghan says, raising a brow and surveying me over the rim of her coffee cup while she sips.
“No lectures,” I groan. “Words bad. Hurt brain.”
