Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 48306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
“I’m not you, mom,” I say gently. “And Camden is not dad.”
“Sweetheart, you’re eighteen.”
“And he’s only twenty-eight.”
“And your coach!” she snaps. “Your high school swim coach!”
I look away.
“Okay, I know that looks bad, but—”
“Oh, you think?” she snaps. “He’s ten fucking years older, Waverly!”
“And in five years, that won’t matter. In ten, no one will bat an eye.”
She rolls her eyes. “And now you’re talking about being with this man for the next fifteen years?”
“Yes.” I say it evenly, without a second’s hesitation.
“Waverly, you don’t know what you—”
“Want?” I snap. “Yeah, mom I do. I want to graduate, I want to go to Cornell, and I want a degree. But I also want to see how I do on the Olympic track. I want to see if I’ve got what it takes. And if I don’t, I’ve got the grades anyways. That’s what I want, and none of this is going to change that.”
She purses her lips.
“And Camden?”
“Him too, mom,” I whisper.
She looks away. “I can’t condone this, Waverly. I can’t.”
“I wish you would,” I say gently. “Mom, I’m eighteen, and I can make this decision with or without you.”
I stand, moving around the kitchen island towards her, and when I get there, she sobs as I crash into her, hugging her tightly.
“I know you’re worried, and I know you think I’m being taken advantage of, and I know you think this is something I’ll regret, but I promise you, it’s none of those things. I can make this decision with or without you, but I want you to be okay with it.”
She sobs against me, hugging me fiercely as we rock together.
“He loves me, mom,” I say softly.
She makes a snorting sound, but I just shake my head.
“He does, and I love him, and this is happening. Mom, you’re not gonna lose me, and I’m not going to get hurt, okay?”
“You don’t know that, Waverly.”
“We don’t know if we’ll get hurt crossing the freaking street, mom!”
She pulls away, smiling wryly as she sighs.
“My headstrong, driven daughter.”
I grin.
“Waverly, I’m the Vice Principle at a school where the head swim coach is having a relationship with one of the students. Forget the fact that she’s my daughter, it’s still expressly against the rules. Explicitly so.”
She shakes her head.
“What would you do if you were me with all of this?”
“Talk to him?”
She frowns. “Waverly, I can’t just let this go. I have to fire him.”
“Or I could leave Winchester.”
Her brows arch sharply. “Excuse me?”
I shrug. “Or he stays, and I go. Southworth does have a decent public high school, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” she mutters.
“So let him stay.”
“That’s what you’d do?” She snaps. “You’d let a man ten years older than your daughter, who’s her coach, stay at is job after he… after he—”
“Loved me?” I butt in. “Pushed me to be better, and to fight harder, and to go after what I wanted with everything I have?”
She purses her lips.
“Mom, you’re still acting like he molested me or something, and I can promise you, nothing is further from the truth. I know what I feel, okay? This isn’t just teenage lust, or some passing fling. He’s the real thing, mom. I know I’m young, and I know that sounds cliched, but, c’mon! You know me! Have I ever done something ‘whimsically’ or half-assed?”
She grins sardonically.
“No, mom, I haven’t. When I go after something, I go after it hard, because it’s what I want. Swimming, grades, college. And now him.”
“Waverly—”
“If you fire him, I’m leaving Winchester.”
Her eyes snap to mine.
“That sounds an awful lot like blackmail,” she says tensely.
“Yeah? Well, that’s ‘cause it is.”
Her eyes narrow, but I don’t back down.
“No one will know, okay? And nothing will happen at school, or with swimming.”
“Or outside of school,” she mutters.
I pause, raising a brow, and she scowls.
“No, that was not a crack in my decision, Waverly.”
I smile. “It kinda sounded like it.”
She looks away, and suddenly, she stands and walks across the kitchen. I watch, puzzled as she grabs her car keys from the hook near the back door before she looks back at me.
“Well?”
I frown. “Well what?”
“Are you coming?”
“Mom, where—”
“I’m going to play this game, Waverly. I’m not saying for how long, but I’ll play.”
Mom, what game?”
She clears her throat.
“I asked you what you’d do.”
“Yeah?”
She shrugs. “You said ‘talk to him.’”
My heart skips.
“So, let’s go.”
I run across the kitchen and throw my arms around her, squeezing her tight.
“I love you, mom.”
“I love you too, sweetheart,” she says softly. “But all I’m saying is a talk. That’s the only promise I make. Ready?”
I nod.
“Well let’s go then.”
We head for the door, when suddenly, something catches my eye on the counter near the microwave, in the little tin we keep mail in. I frown at the “New York University” letterhead on the return address.