Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“Abbie?”
She glances away from the fire, brow raised.
“Is this one of the ‘just add water’ mixes?” When her forehead furrows, I explain, “I apparently can’t focus on small type yet.”
Her lips part in realization. “Oh. Yeah, it is. Do you need me to measure out the—”
“I’ve got it,” I say when she begins to get up from her chair. “I know what the consistency should be. I just wasn’t sure if water was all it needed.”
“Just water,” she confirms.
While the griddle is heating, I glance over at Abbie again. Now there’s a sight that doesn’t make my head ache. She’s got her phone off the battery charger and is curled up in the armchair. Every little while, she swipes the screen with her thumb. Turning a page.
That’s irresistible to me. “What book did you choose?”
She gives me a long, narrow look. As if thinking about not answering. Then, “Otherlands.”
The title sounds familiar but I can’t place it. “Is it science fiction?”
“Science, but not fiction.” She scoots around in the chair so that she’s facing me a little better. “It’s by a paleontologist who goes backward through time with each chapter, explaining how different animals flourished or went extinct when their environments changed.”
Ah, that’s where I’ve heard of it. “I have that. Haven’t read it yet. But you’re enjoying it? It’s interesting?”
“So interesting. Like, did you know that grass was barely even a thing when dinosaurs were alive? I always pictured them resembling herds of buffalo, grazing on the grassy plains. Or with the tall ones eating trees while the short ones ate grass. But grass came only became dominant after the dinosaurs were gone.”
Vibrant. When did I decide that was how to describe her? Yet it’s the perfect word for her. “I didn’t know. I always pictured them the same way.”
“I also didn’t know the Mediterranean was empty at one point. The whole sea was nothing but a giant basin full of salt because it was cut off from the Atlantic at the Strait of Gibraltar and dried up. But when the strait opened, there was catastrophic flooding and massive waterfalls as it filled again.”
I knew that one. But I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to one-up her. I won’t pull that kind of shit, but she doesn’t know that about me yet. “You like prehistoric stuff, then?”
“I do,” she says—warily, as if waiting for me to trash her.
I’d be the last person to do that. “You might like that third book over there.” I gesture to Harris’s collection. “It includes zombie megafauna that were trapped in ice until the glaciers melt.”
Amusement brightens her expression. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I’m almost tempted. I don’t read much fiction. But maybe I’ll give it a try if my battery pack runs out of juice. Because I planned to recharge it in the car, but I don’t want to shovel out three feet of snow just to open the car door.”
At least three feet. But the snow seems to be tapering off. “Are you still planning to find a tree once it stops snowing?”
“I am.”
“If you give me another day to rest up this leg, I’ll help.”
By the dismay on her face, she’s looking for a polite way to tell me to fuck off. She goes with, “I don’t need help.”
“But I might. I have to get my pack. And with this bump on my head, it’d be smarter to have someone out there with me.”
“Oh. All right, then.”
Again, willing to help me. Though it’s clear that, otherwise, she’d rather have nothing to do with me. Yet she does anyway.
A faint memory floats through my head. Maybe it was a dream. Telling Abbie that she was beautiful. And so sweet for taking care of me.
But I’ve heard that before, haven’t I? Harris knows there’s history between the Walkers and the Knowles, so he doesn’t talk about her much. Not to me. But when he does say anything, it’s always something good. Which is no small thing, coming from Harris.
I turn back to the griddle, trying hard to remember what I had against Abbie, specifically. That shit with our parents running off together…that’s old news. My dad let it rule his life. Same with her mom. But it’s stupid to hold a grudge against another kid for what our cheating parents did almost twenty years ago.
She did bite me. Fuck me if I can recall what started it, though. What provoked her? Maybe I did or said something—or she simply went crazy with grief.
Hell, maybe it was just the inevitable result of the toxic shit our parents were throwing at each other, because that was impossible to escape. Abbie couldn’t have been, what—six years old? Seven? Likely she doesn’t even remember the incident. I only remember because I held onto it, resenting her for attacking me at my mom’s funeral, of all places. But my dad held onto it tighter. Continually reminding me of what she’d done. Feeding that resentment. He was the one who first called her vicious. A description that was reinforced every time I saw the scar. The vicious one did that to me.