Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
My breathing became labored again after only a few feet. I held back the sudden onslaught of tears that threatened to fill my eyes. It was too soon. It was all happening too fast.
I hadn’t expected things to progress so quickly.
I tipped my head up and looked at the treetops. At the birds flying among them and the rustling of the turning leaves. Like summer was changing to fall, I too was losing my sun. A fated leaf, destined to fall.
Easton brought me to the music building. “Catch you later in the cafeteria, yeah?”
I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Yeah.” It was our standing date. Our chance each day to see each other. To catch up. If I went a day without Easton, life didn’t seem right. Easton ruffled my carefully styled hair. “East!” I admonished and rolled my eyes as he ran away, laughing. Students passed by me, entering the music building. But I watched him go. Running to a girl I didn’t know and giving her his usual bright smile and god-awful pickup lines.
My heart seemed to crack down the center. I had no idea how to tell him. I would never be able to find the words. Because I knew it would break him too. I’d held off for months. Telling myself every day that today would be the day. That I would muster up the strength. But the day never came.
And I knew it wouldn’t be long until the choice was taken from me.
He would know soon enough.
Darkness loomed over me as I thought about Easton. He was bold and larger than life on the outside, but I knew him differently. I knew the fragility that resided within him. I knew of his demons. Of the blackness that threatened to consume him.
Finding out about me…it would destroy him.
Easton’s loud laughter sailed on the wind to my ears. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up at the sound, but I couldn’t help but smile. His energy, when good, could light up the sky.
The quad was almost empty when I finally slipped inside the door. I took my usual seat in Lewis’s class. From the minute I sat down, the butterflies swarmed in my stomach as I cast a glance back at where Cromwell usually sat. He wasn’t in class yet.
I played with the edge of my notepad as I waited. My heart bounced around in my chest, an uneven beat. I rubbed my hand over my sternum. I inhaled a long breath, focusing on my breathing the way I knew helped. On my fourth exhale, my eyes darted to the doorway. It was as though I sensed he was there.
Cromwell Dean walked into the room, wearing ripped jeans and a fitted white shirt, his tattoos framing his muscled arms and his piercings gleaming against his olive skin and messy dark hair.
He was clutching a notepad in his hand. A pen rested behind his ear. I tried to look away from him as he walked across the room toward the stairs that led him to his seat. But I couldn’t. Images of Saturday night were Technicolor flashbacks in my mind. The music room. Him, sitting behind me, hard chest against my back. His lips on my shoulder, kissing my bare skin. If I concentrated hard enough, I could still feel the softness of his lips.
My lips parted as I remembered it. I knew my face was flushed. Cromwell Dean did that to me. It was as big of a blessing as it was a fear.
As if hearing the thoughts in my head, Cromwell looked up. His eyes fixed straight on me. Every part of me tensed, apprehensive about what he would do. So when his lip hooked up at the corner, a hint of a smile aimed right at me, my pulse kicked into an erratic kind of sprint.
Infected by his smirk, I gave him the ghost of a smile back, ignoring the way the girls in the room looked at him like he was their source of warmth on a cold day. Because his attention was aimed at me. The British boy with a permanent chip on his shoulder was looking at me.
I steeled my nerves when he began walking up the stairs. His long legs ate up the path to me in no time. I expected him to walk by me, leaving me breathless in his wake. I didn’t expect him to come and sit beside me, slumping down on the seat that Bryce normally sat in.
I stared at him. He lounged back in the seat like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Farraday,” he said lazily, his accent wrapping like melting butter around my last name.
“Dean,” I whispered back. I could see other students looking our way. I shifted nervously in my seat under their attention. I turned to see him watching me. There was a light in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. An air of peace that showed in his relaxed shoulders.