Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Dad went to the wet bar in the corner of the room, poured a glass of whiskey, downed it, then set his gaze on me. His fists clenched and released before he stopped and inhaled a deep breath. “You will be the death of me...” Probably. He inhaled a deep breath. “I’ve spoken with the school. You’re no longer suspended. You’re going back on Monday.” And then he left the room, taking the entire bottle of whiskey with him.
This was what my life had come to. I couldn’t even get a proper suspension, never mind expelled.
An hour later, I stood in the driveway, my backpack slung over one shoulder as I stared at an old, sun-faded Range Rover with chipped paint. My personalized license plate that read: DrewsTT had been attached to the back, mocking me.
Apparently, my dad was taking the insurance money for the TT and leaving me with this.
Well, everything else had gone to shit, and now I’d be driving a literal representation of my life. Really, I probably should have seen it coming, given that I’d pushed my dad so far. Still didn’t soften the blow, though.
The unoiled hinges creaked and groaned when I opened the door and sank behind the wheel. The smell of stale cigarettes and fried chicken lifted from the cracked leather seats. Which gave me horrible flashbacks of my short stint at Frank’s.
Lowering the windows, I typed Nora’s address into my phone’s Sat Nav, then backed out and followed the directions out of Barrington.
I eventually turned into one of the rundown neighborhoods nestled between pawn shops and cash payday loan places, and I followed the street until I saw Nora’s car in a driveway at the end of the cul-de-sac.
Flower boxes decorated the windows, the lawn was actually green, and unlike most of the other houses, the siding on hers wasn’t faded and rotting.
Nora hadn’t exactly seemed thrilled when I suggested working on our project at her house instead of mine. But since my dad was home— No one needed to witness just how much of a crap he didn’t give about me. That, and I needed to get out of that house. So bad.
She answered the door, rubbing a hand over her arm. “So… just don’t like, judge me or anything. The place isn’t the best.”
“Will you stop?”
She stepped to the side, ushering me onto the worn carpet in the hallway. We passed a bazillion family portraits, and something uncomfortable stirred in my chest. I’d grown up amongst kids who had entire game arcades in their homes—pools and tennis courts, and as ridiculous as it sounded, I had never considered what it would be like to not live like that. Until recently, people like Nora and I were worlds apart, and that had a sense of guilt winding through me. I noted the crochet blankets on the back of the living room sofa, the board games stacked on the bookshelf, their boxes as worn and dog-eared as the books beside them. I tried to imagine my dad offering to play a board game, and the thought almost made me laugh. He was too busy working to ever do anything so trivial.
She led me up the stairs to her room, where nothing matched—stripes and dots and a mish-mash of colors, and there was a certain charm in it that was absent in my dad’s house.
She tossed her textbook onto her bed, then flopped back onto the mattress. “So, have you talked to he who shall not be named?”
“No. I blocked his number.”
“Good. He’s a dick. You should totally date Jackson.” That wasn’t going to happen. Bellamy and I weren’t talking, but I had a feeling Bellamy might kill him based on the fact that he had broken into my house, again, just to warn me off. Whether what he said about Max was true or not… I had to tell her.
I let out a sigh. “Bellamy said something to me. About Max…”
Nora rolled onto her side, snatching a stuffed cat from the foot of her bed. “Okay... What?”
“He said he spoke to you, that Max does some bad shit to girls...” I sat up and propped my back to the wall.
“Yeah, he did. That was the whole conversation I had before I jumped into the pool at Jackson’s all pissed. He said Max date rapes girls.” She rolled her eyes and tossed the stuffed animal in the air. “He’s such an asshole.”
He had warned Nora...I drew a pattern over my jeans, thinking. “Don’t get me wrong, he is an asshole, but he seemed really mad about it.”
Mad enough to break-in. Mad over not just me, but Nora. It seemed out of character for Bellamy.
“Look at those guys, Drew, why the hell would they date rape girls?” She shook her head, then pushed up to sit beside me. “There’s always rumors going back and forth about Dayton and Barrington. Dayton guys hate when Dayton girls go for Barrington.”