Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
He rubs his thumbs over my cheeks. “I believe you.”
I step back then.
I get out of his embrace. I put some distance between us.
Four steps worth of distance.
But then I decide I need two more. So I move back two paces further.
And all the while I’m moving back, I watch him.
I watch his fists tightening up at his sides. His eyes narrowing. His Adam’s apple jerking with a swallow. His features becoming all kinds of brittle and pained.
While I hate to see him in pain like this, I also have to take a moment to myself.
I also have to prepare myself for whatever comes next.
I believe you, he said.
But I don’t know what he means by that. Does he mean now, today, what I just said? Or does he mean all the other things that I’ve wanted him to believe?
So with my heart hanging from the ceiling, hanging in the balance between us, I whisper, “You came.”
“You called,” he says, without missing a beat, without making me wait even a single second.
A lump forms in my throat at the answer.
The one I’ve wanted him to give me ever since I became his.
Even so, I lift my chin and stay strong. “I didn’t. I-I couldn’t. Your phone… It was —”
“Dead,” he says, his eyes direct and frank. “I think, at least. Haven’t looked at it all day. Didn’t even think to look at it all day. It took fucking hours at the fucking hospital and my brother wouldn’t get off my back and then… Then I came here.”
I look at his haircut. His clean-shaven jaw. His tie.
That rose.
Swallowing, I whisper, “To apologize to my parents.”
“Yeah.”
I fist my hands as well. “Is that… Is that all?”
“No.”
“Then w-what else?”
At this, he makes me wait a little bit and I think it’s because he has the same problem now. Like I did before. Where I had so many things to say, so many things that were clawing to come out. He has a lot of things too, to say, to get out.
It both scares me and thrills me.
Because I don’t know what exactly those things are.
“Everything,” he says finally.
“I don’t…”
Know what that means.
“They’re coordinates,” he says then, his eyes penetrating.
“What?”
He opens his fists and brings a hand up.
He puts it on his chest. On the left side, his fingers open wide.
And I know.
What he means.
“The numbers,” he confirms. “They’re coordinates.”
I’m… glad. That he told me about the tattoo on his chest.
But I’m also confused because I still have no idea what that means.
“Uh, coordinates. You mean,” I wrinkle my nose, “like, of a place?”
He jerks out a nod. “Yeah.”
“What place?”
“This place.” Then, “Here.”
“I don’t… understand.”
His eyes rove over my features, taking me in with a deliberate slowness. Then he sighs, lowering his hand, fisting his fingers again and goes, “You’re always thanking me for things, aren’t you? So I guess it’s my turn now. To say thank you.”
“For… what?”
“For never believing,” he says, “the rumors, the gossip. You only believed what I showed you, never what you heard. You hated me because of how I behaved with you rather than what people talked about me and I… Yeah, thanks for that. And for last night too. For standing up for me. For defending me. No one has ever done that before. No one has ever stood by me and faced the world for me. With me. But most of all, no one has ever believed in me, Echo. No one. Not before you.”
He pauses and my eyes well up with tears. “That’s because people are stupid and ignorant.”
And I hate them.
And I love you so much.
And please say that you love me too. Please.
His lips twitch slightly. “You know how you’re always saying that I turned night into day, the first time we met?”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head slightly. “I don’t think it was me. I think it was you.”
“M-me?”
“Yeah.” He nods, staring into my eyes with such intensity that I’m all breathless. “You turned my night into day. The night that I’d been living in for fifteen years. It was you who made me see the sun that night. You made me see summer. Watermelons and lemonade and sunshine. All because you walked into my life with a pretty pink dress on.” Then, shrugging, “Well, I thought it was pink at first. But as it turns out, there are about a hundred and fifty shades of pink: candy pink, cherry blossom, dusty pink, French pink, chestnut fucking rose. And the one that you were wearing that night was something called carnation pink. I looked it up later that night. I mean, who the fuck knew there were so many shades of pink. Who the fuck knew that pink, of all colors, would become my favorite. It would become the color with which I’d see the world. The color that I’d see in my dreams. It would become the color of every thought I had, every breath I took, every beat of my heart. But then, I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? Because that’s what you do. You change things. You change the world. You changed my world. With your books and words. With your diary. God, your fucking diary.”