Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I hadn’t lied when I told him that I never hated him. I’d wanted to, oh how I’d wanted to. It would’ve made things so much easier if I did. But no matter how hard I tried I just never could.
That was never more evident than during my one failed relationship in the last twelve years. I’d walked away knowing that I would never be whole, never find the kind of love I shared with him, with anyone else. I was angry then, but even with that anger the hate wouldn’t come.
When I’d first come back home that summer so long ago, I never expected my world to be shattered. We’d had a stupid argument, something that seemed so trivial now on the back of all that had transpired since.
I got in a huff, as I always did back then when I didn’t get my way. But instead of giving in as he usually did, he dug his heels in and I just had to show him. He was always accusing me of being hardheaded anyway so why not?
So I’d left town and went to stay with an aunt hundreds of miles away, thinking that I’d give him enough time to calm down and see things my way.
I missed him like crazy even before I’d left the county line, but stubbornly refused to call him. It didn’t register to me that he hadn’t called me a hundred times to tease me out of my mad like he usually did.
Granted I’d screamed at him that we were over, and had left without even telling him that I was going. But obviously he had to know I wasn’t serious, that I was just blowing off steam.
It wasn’t like it had been the first time we’d had one of our famous fights. We’d been together for a year, every day for a year. From the moment we started dating it was like something you read about in a fairytale. Every young girl’s dream. We were inseparable.
I’d given him my virginity, had pledged myself to him and vowed that I would always be his and he’d done the same.
That was the kind of things we said to each other back then and we meant every word. I knew that nothing would ever come between us, not even my temper and stupidity. But I was wrong, so wrong. And we’d both paid the price.
But before everything went to hell, we’d had some amazing times together. I can still look back some days and smile through the tears at the love we’d shared. That once in a lifetime kind of love that most people would die for.
I didn’t know I was taking it for granted until I’d lost it. Maybe because I never believed it possible for it to be gone. We were going to be together forever. The great love of Evans Falls.
When I was with him, no matter what was going on around me, I knew I was safe and loved. I was so secure in that love that it had been easy for me to walk away in anger, knowing that like always, he’d be there when I returned.
We had a life to build together after all. All those things we’d pledged to do and be for each other. Our shared dream of happily ever after.
But the dream came crashing to an end once I came back home and the boy I loved tore my heart out and stomped it into the ground. I think I died that day, at least it felt that way.
I remember the feeling as I listened to his words like it was only yesterday. Like drowning with nothing to hold onto. I saw everything that I had been fall apart in those few seconds. Lost, alone, exposed.
I’d gone numb all over and wished for death. All I could see as his words penetrated was a future without him. Bleak, dark, lonely. He’d been so broken then too, but I didn’t care.
I was never so mad in my life as I was that day. I think I slapped his face a couple times before running away. I can still hear his anguished voice calling out for me to come back.
He’d gutted me and all I could do was stand there in his backyard where we’d spent so many great hours together, lying under the stars weaving dreams; crying my heart out.
As if his betrayal wasn’t bad enough, the fact of who it was that he’d betrayed me with made it so much worse. I knew. Everyone knew that Dee was after him.
I was never worried about the whispers though, or her baleful stares in the hallway or wherever we happened to run into her because I was sure of his love for me. She was never a threat to me, to us, and the love that she so envied. Or so I’d thought.