Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
She keeps her focus on me, though. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” I nod and wave the bikinis again. “If you don’t tell me which bikini you want, there’s a very high chance that I’ll pack the wrong one and then you’ll be the one regretting it. Because you’re the one who has to wear them.”
She gives me a look before asking again, “Tell me what happened at the café today.”
There’s a pinch in my chest that I ignore and forge ahead. “Fine. The red one it is.”
I throw the other one aside—the one that I definitely know she’d pick; we’ve been friends forever, so I know what she likes—and I make a show of folding the little strings on the red one before reaching out to dump it in her suitcase. As expected, she gasps and scoots over to me on her knees, then snatches the bikini away.
“Are you insane?” she exclaims, putting her hands on her hips. “The red one makes me look like a lobster.”
I purse my lips in response, trying to hold back a chuckle.
Narrowing her eyes, she extends one hand, palm up. “Give me the gold one.”
I dutifully hand it to her, still trying to control my mirth.
She shakes her head as she grumbles and dumps the bikini on top of the neatly folded clothes in her luggage. “I’m going on a vacation with my boyfriend and even if I plan to break up with him when I get back, I still want to look my best. It’s the Bahamas, okay? Who knows when I’ll get the chance again to go to the Bahamas and get away from here?”
Yes, she is going on a vacation; and yes, she plans to break up with Ben.
I don’t blame her; he’s kind of an asshole who thinks the whole world revolves around him and his father’s ranch. I told her to break up with him the first time I talked to him on the phone. But she kept it going because she needed a date to the New Year’s party a few months ago, and because she knew it pissed off her brother.
Peyton has a difficult relationship with her brother, with her whole family, actually.
Well, the truth is that she hates her family. And she has reasons. Reasons I fully understand because I have a difficult relationship with my family too.
“Told you to make your choice,” I say in a singsong voice.
Her response is to poke her tongue out at me.
I chuckle, and together we finish packing for tomorrow. She leaves early morning, and gosh, I’m going to miss her. She asked me to go with her now that our finals are over and the summer is upon us. But I refused. I didn’t want to be the third wheel, even though their relationship is going to expire soon. Plus, this summer I was planning on doing something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now. Usually I always have extra classes or extra shifts at the library or whatever job I’m working, but this year I told myself that I’d put on my big-girl panties and do it.
Plus, I also wanted to… write to him.
I wanted to be here so I could get his letter every Friday and write him back that very day. So it gets to him in time on Tuesday. But then he said he was getting out early and asked to meet me and…
My heart twists.
It twists and twists until I think my heart is becoming a tight and throbbing fist rather than just an organ.
I try to ignore the pain in my chest because tonight was supposed to be all about spending time together, watching movies and eating popcorn and ice cream and anything else with too much salt or sugar in it. But I guess I’ve been doing a poor job of it because as soon as we zip up her suitcase and put it aside, Peyton grabs my hand, pulls me to sit on the bed beside her, and gives me a grave look. “Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, just tell me, how bad was it? With 1 being excruciatingly bad. The worst ever.”
I meet her gaze and sigh in defeat. “Minus 394.”
She opens her mouth before closing it and frowning. “Very random. Is that—”
“Bad,” I explain. “That’s bad, Pey. It’s less than 1. It’s less than 0 even. It’s a negative integer.”
She rolls her eyes. “You know how much I hate geometry, Riri. Why would you put me through that?”
Riri.
That’s my name, or the shortened version of it.
My actual name is Reverie.
Reverie Bell.
“It’s algebra. You… Never mind.” I shake my head. “It was bad. Really bad; that’s it.”
She narrows her eyes. “What did he do?”
I open and close my fists in my lap. “Nothing. He did nothing. It’s just…”