Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Because I was going to show him.
“I drew you this,” I said, thrusting the sketchbook toward him.
My smile was confident, wide and gleaming, because I just knew he was going to get it. Who else would be drawing him something? Besides, he knew my voice. He knew me.
Leo looked back at his friends who were fighting off laughter, his brows still bent together when he turned to face me again. “Um… okay?”
He took the sketchbook from me, and a teammate behind him said, “Go on, what is it, Hernandez?”
Leo glanced at me before hesitantly opening the book to the first page. It was the simplest of the drawings I’d been curating for him since the night he asked me to, a fine-line sketch of things that made me think of summer — wildflowers, bumblebees, a rushing river.
When it didn’t hit him after seeing it, when he just screwed up his face and glanced at me before flipping the page, my heart sank.
His friends watched over his shoulder, and when the page was flipped, they started laughing and yelling and hitting each other before one of them ripped the notebook out of his hands.
“What the hell? Did this crooked-teeth freak draw you porn?”
My cheeks flushed with a furious heat, and I made a mental note to never smile again. “It’s not porn,” I argued.
One of the guys flipped the book around toward me, showcasing the curvy girl who I felt looked like me. She was in a hoodie and leggings, what I usually wore when I played, and a boy in a football jersey held her in his arms, wrapped around her as they looked up at the stars.
The boy was supposed to be Leo.
If you looked closely, in our hands, there was a single Xbox controller — one we held together.
But Leo didn’t look closely. In fact, he barely looked at all before he ripped the book away from his cackling friends and shoved it back into my chest.
“Look, I don’t know what the hell this is supposed to be, but I don’t want it.”
His eyes locked on mine.
And what I saw reflected in them tore me to shreds.
He knew.
He knew it was me. It was written in every feature — the pity in his eyes, his furrowed brows, his rigid stance and heaving chest. And right then and there, I recognized the truth.
He knew it was me, and he didn’t like what he saw.
“You have no idea what I look like.”
“So?”
How stupid I was for believing he meant that.
He couldn’t even hold eye contact for more than a moment before he looked down at the ground between us, the book still extended toward me.
My throat burned as I snatched it out of his hands, willing the tears flooding my eyes to stay put and not release down my cheeks. “You’re a liar, and a jerk, and I hope one day someone hurts you as bad as you just hurt me.”
His friends broke out into a chorus of laughter, and one of them said, “Ohhh, you hear that, Hernandez? This fat, pimple-faced freak called you a big bad jerk!”
The boy’s voice mimicked that of a little kid with those last few words, which made everyone crack up all over again.
And Leo didn’t say a word.
He didn’t stop them, didn’t tell them to shut up and leave me alone, didn’t defend me or even show an ounce of mercy. And when his friend threw an arm around him, leading him and the rest of the pack away from me, Leo looked back only once.
I thought I saw him mouth that he was sorry.
It only made me fume more.
A blink released the tears I’d been holding back, and they burned the memory into my brain forever as they seared down my cheeks.
I waited until I was home, until I was behind my bedroom door that I slammed vehemently. Then, I screamed and ripped at the pages of the notebook
“I hate you, Leo Hernandez,” I seethed, tearing page after page. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”
Yanking the pages out of the notebook wasn’t enough. When they littered my floor, I picked them each up and shredded them into tiny morsels until my bedroom floor was covered in paper snow. My chest was heaving by the time I finished, and then I collapsed right there in the middle of the pile.
And I cried.
No, I sobbed, until my lungs gave out and there were no more tears left in my ducts. Mom hesitantly knocked on my door, but I told her to go away, and I told Dad the same when he got home from work. I didn’t join them for dinner. It felt like I’d never eat again, never sleep again, never be the same person I was before Leo destroyed me.