Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I smirked. “If Miguel were here, he’d say, ‘He must be a handsome son of a bitch, then.’ ”
She chuckled. “I like the sound of him.”
“He was the best.” I touched the photo of the three of us. “She was too.”
I felt her squeeze my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Chris. I can’t imagine what losing them must feel like.”
It took me a minute to fight back a surge of emotion. “I’ve made peace with it. I have. But that doesn’t make missing them any easier. I’ve talked about them in therapy,” I confessed. “But I don’t get to talk about them much outside of that. Sometimes it makes it feel like they were never here. You know, maybe I was already lost before I went up in space, ’cause I lost a piece of me when she died and another when he was killed.”
Hallie tugged on my hand, and I looked at her, confused, as she settled down on a step. “Will you sit with me and tell me about them?”
Staring into her kind eyes, a sensation of falling came over me. I slowly sat down on the steps above her and leaned against the stair railing. “Let me see . . . my mom was funny. She had a mischievous sense of humor. One Christmas, she realized by the lack of surprise on our faces that my brother and I had discovered our presents before she’d wrapped them and put them under the tree. So the next year, when Miguel and I went hunting, she left fake presents with booby traps in them.” I chuckled as I remembered. “One of them exploded and covered both of our heads in pink glitter. It took us days to get rid of it.”
Hallie laughed softly and I kept talking. In fact, once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop.
NINETEEN
Hallie
The sound of seagulls crying infiltrated my consciousness, followed by the gentle, rhythmic whoosh of the ocean. My eyes flew open, and it took me a moment to figure out where I was. The room was dim, with heavy curtains drawn over the large window.
It was the guest room Chris had shown me to last night.
Pushing up into a sitting position, my mouth felt a little dry and my stomach grumbled, but otherwise I felt okay considering the amount of wine I’d consumed.
Reaching for my phone on the nightstand, I switched it on. I’d switched it off at some point yesterday to conserve the battery. A minute later, my phone told me it was only a few minutes past 8:00 a.m. That meant I’d had very little sleep because Chris and I had talked on the stairs for ages about his mom and Miguel, about the distance between him and his father, and how it had always been that way.
Sliding out of bed, I wandered into the bathroom and grimaced at the ghostly pale face staring back at me in the mirror. Deciding to have a quick shower, hoping to rid myself of any toxins leaking through my pores, I tried not to overanalyze this weekend.
Or the past two weeks.
Had it really been only two weeks since I started spending time with Chris? That didn’t seem right. It couldn’t be. It felt like we’d known each other much longer.
Smiling to myself, I kept the jets off my hair, scrubbed myself down, and got out. Not wanting to waste time in case Chris was already awake and eating breakfast without me, I hurried through my makeup routine, using the supplies I carried with me everywhere in my purse. I knotted my hair on top of my head in a messy bun and changed back into my clothes from yesterday. My T-shirt smelled a little. Yuck. It would just have to do, I supposed. I wondered if there was a way to stay upwind of Chris for the rest of the day. Feeling self-conscious about it, I reluctantly opened the bedroom door and almost stepped onto folded black fabric. There was a piece of paper on top. Reaching down, I smiled as I read it.
Yours if you need it. Chris.
I lifted the fabric, and a man’s black T-shirt unfolded. It had the logo of one of our favorite bands on it. Grinning so big my cheeks hurt, I stepped back inside the room and closed the door. Bringing the T-shirt to my nose, I inhaled the scent of fresh laundry, but it didn’t have Chris’s cologne on it. Still, it was Chris’s shirt.
Feeling stupidly giddy, I whipped off my sweater and T-shirt and shrugged on his. It hung way too big on the shoulders, but I didn’t care. I tucked it into my jeans as best I could and slipped my sweater back on over it.
I was wearing Chris Ortiz’s T-shirt.
It was like being fifteen all over again and the cutest guy in school gave me his jacket to wear on a chilly night. I stuffed Chris’s little note in my purse like a fangirl.