Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Apollo wanted to show me a surprise, and I told him no. I hurt him, so I want to make it right. I haven’t asked—not once in this whole thing—if he’s actually okay.
I don’t want to be that person—that person who is thoughtless and heartless. I’ve been angry with my dad and John for keeping this silly feud alive, and then I’ve refused forgiveness over and over. I’m being just as stubborn as my dad. Hearing him utter those curses that weren’t full-on curses, but were enough, shocked me. I didn’t realize the depths of his hatred went so deep. I didn’t realize he was so bitter after all these years. I thought he could just let it go.
As I sat in my room and brought another doll to life, I realized I had my own crap to un-crap. I needed to get my shit sorted.
Apollo isn’t out by the pool. He’s not in the backyard at all, that I can see. I search the front yard too, and there’s nothing. He’s not in the house. I checked before I came out here.
“Dang it!” I slap a mosquito off my arm and head to the backyard again.
Maybe he’s in the woods. If that’s true, I’m not going in there after him. I decided that this morning when I circled around the house. I knew I’d probably get lost and eaten if I went in there alone.
“Good lord!” Another two slaps, one on my leg, since the beast just bit through my dress, and one on my shoulder.
“Patience?”
I swear my skeleton nearly leaps clean off my skin when Apollo sits up in the garden. “What are you doing in there?”
“Just thinking.” He has four huge welts on his forehead and one on his jawline that I can see.
“I think the mosquitoes are pretty thick.”
He pats the patch of weeds beside him. “Want to join me?”
What the hell? I guess I do. It doesn’t matter if we’re standing, sitting, or lying down. The bugs are just furious this time of night.
As soon as I lower myself down on the weeds and look up at the sky, which is changing from a deep blue to the haze of evening, I feel my body start to burn. It’s not from the low riding sun or the weeds at my back. I didn’t just sit on a patch of poison ivy, either. It’s that I’m nearly brushing Apollo’s arm with my own. My heart starts to skid and thunder dangerously.
“Bitty Kitty is in her bed. I checked on her before I left the house.”
“She’ll probably get up for her night-day soon,” Apollo says.
“Our dads are being too quiet.”
“Yeah.”
“I think it might be the quiet before another storm.”
If we can’t fix this, does it mean we’ve failed? Does it mean our dads will stay enemies forever? Does it mean we’ll have to stay fake-married forever? Apollo would never ask that of me. I know he’ll let me leave if I truly want to. He’ll undo the marriage anytime I ask. I know that. I just…there’s a part of me that doesn’t like admitting defeat. About our dads. This was basically a last-ditch effort, and if it doesn’t work, is this going to be their lives forever?
It makes me sad thinking about it. But it makes me even sadder to think about going back to Michigan and leaving this place that is so clearly un-magical.
God, I’m such a liar. I’m a total freaking liar pants.
This place is great.
We’re both silent, but for once, it’s not a silence we feel like we need to fill. I want to apologize. I just don’t know where to begin. There’s so much history, so much past, so many things we’ve shared, and so many things we didn’t.
We both study the sky. Around our heads, a black cloud of mosquitoes forms. They sometimes touch down on us, but we’ve been pretty successful at just brushing them away.
Suddenly, Apollo starts talking out of nowhere. “If I could go back in time, I’d call you. It would be the first thing I did. I’d call, and I’d tell you that it’s okay you’re mad, but it won’t last forever. Then, I’d do everything in my power to keep in touch. I’d make pen pals cool again. I’d make emails cool. I’d rock the shit out of a long-distance friendship. But you wouldn’t want it. You’d be mad, and you wouldn’t want to listen. You’d feel betrayed. I did the worst thing I could have done. I did what I promised I’d never do. I left you all alone. I’d make you see you weren’t alone, though. I’d make you see that we still had each other, and we could be friends, even if we weren’t there in person.”
My heart hurts. All of me hurts. “It’s…okay.” That’s not what I want to say. It’s so lame and inadequate. I can’t put into words all the things the deepest parts of me want to say. “You didn’t come back home after, though.” It was three years between the time Apollo finished college and now.