Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I would have to learn to get used to it.
And that was how I spent my eighteenth birthday.
Six
Vance - Present Day
She was different.
Maybe I should have expected that.
I mean, of course she was different.
She'd been gone for almost nine years.
I guess, to an extent, she had been preserved in my mind as the sixteen-year-old who was never short on topic for conversations, never shy with her strong opinions. Confident. Interesting. Deep.
She still seemed confident and deep.
But she didn't speak much.
She just sat there with those deep eyes that I used to read so easily. There were still sparks there at times, but for the most part, they were blank, seeing but showing nothing.
And while, years before, she had been passionate and even a bit heated, she hadn't been angry.
Angry was very much something she appeared to be now, though. And quick to it.
I'd never been one for anger either.
There was no denying that I'd snapped at her, though. Not that she maybe didn't have it coming. But it was still unlike me.
I'd made good points.
But maybe it wasn't my place to make them.
Maybe she was right and I had no reason to be so resentful about her attitude.
I had no idea what she had been through.
I think that was why I had written so much about it. I think I had been trying to understand what she'd been through, what could have prompted her to not only flee, but to stay away for so long.
I guess I never did come to any conclusions.
And any theories I had at one point flew out the window because, clearly, everything she had been through had been much, much worse than I had imagined if they had changed her so entirely.
"The fuck put you in such a shit mood?" West asked, making me realize I'd been slamming around the kitchen making something to eat. "Did you and Daddy Reign's girl have a nice reunion?" he pressed.
"Let's hope that a couple days in my old place gives her time to remember who she is."
"People change, man," West said, shrugging. "I imagine girls who spend time starving in basements then run away to do fuck-knows what tend to change more than usual."
"Maybe," I agreed.
"Gotta wonder why you are so bent about it."
"No, actually, you don't need to wonder about that."
"Still," he said, sighing, barely holding back a grin, "I find myself wondering."
"Well, don't."
"It seems it is not in my control."
"Try harder," I grumbled, pretending to ignore the shit-eating grin on his face.
If there was one thing West liked, it was when he got a rise out of someone. He chose opposite sides in an argument just to fuck with you even if he personally agreed with your stance. He pulled pranks on the girls. He taunted the shit out of the guys when they got lovesick over some chick they were getting serious with.
I had made the mistake of letting him know that Ferryn could be used to get a rise out of me. I was in for a lot of shit when no one else was around.
He'd keep the secret.
Until Reign got back.
Then, well, who the fuck knew what he was capable of saying or implying.
Not that there was anything to imply, of course.
There wasn't—and had never been—anything between Ferryn and me. We'd been sort of friends. As much as a nineteen-year-old guy can be friends with his little sister's sixteen-year-old friend.
That was it.
Sure, I mean, yeah, she had wanted it to be more. I wasn't stupid or blind and she had never been all that subtle.
I liked her mind.
And, well, that was all I could like.
That was all you could like when someone was too young for you. And it was sick to even harbor thoughts like 'in two years she will be eighteen.'
My mind didn't go there.
But there is no way to tell that should she and Iggy have stayed friends, and she therefore continued to be a part of my circle, that once she turned eighteen, something might not have progressed.
It's impossible to say.
I had been a different person then as well. A little too full of myself. A little careless with hearts. I hadn't been a relationship sort of guy. I liked fun and casual, and I hung around girls who liked fun and casual.
So who knows. Maybe she'd have turned eighteen, decided she didn't have any interest in just being one in the line of other girls, and found some other more serious guy to shine all her attention on.
But a part of me still believed that had she stayed, had my life continued on the same path it was on back then, we might have started something up at some point.
We just always clicked. We liked the same things. We always enjoyed each other's company. And Iggy had always made it clear she would love it if she could have Ferryn as an actual sister one day.