Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“I mean it,” I huffed at Kierra. “Stop it!”
“Stop what?” she hummed, curling her hair with her finger as she lay on her stomach in my tree house, kicking her feet back and forth in the air.
“That,” I urged, gesturing toward her. “Stop staring at me like you’re in love with me or something.”
“I’m not in love with you!” she spat out, seeming disturbed by the idea. She didn’t have to sound that bothered by it.
“You don’t have to be a dick about it,” I muttered.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I’m not a dick!”
“You sure do act like one.”
“No, I don’t!” She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms as she huffed. “What’s a dick?”
“You,” I said, only ’cuz I didn’t exactly know how to explain it to her ’cuz I didn’t exactly know what it was, either. All I knew was I didn’t want to be stuck in my tree house with her for the next forever hours and always minutes.
“Well, you’re a bigger dick!”
I leaped to my feet and marched over to her. “No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are! You’re the dickest dick that’s ever dicked!”
“You don’t even know what that means!”
“I don’t care. I just know it’s true. That’s why you dress like a toad.”
I gasped. “I don’t dress like a toad!”
She nodded her head as she stood, standing a few inches away from me. “Uh-huh. You dress like the ugliest toad out there. If you had any common sense, you’d let me dress you, because I’m the best fashion person ever, but you must just like looking ugly!”
“Well at least I don’t walk like a penguin!”
“I don’t walk like a penguin!”
“Yes, you do! The other day I saw you get out of your pool and you waddled like a freaking penguin!”
“Well, jokes on you because I love penguins!”
“Good, Penguin!”
“Don’t call me ‘Penguin’! Just because I like them doesn’t mean you can call me that.”
“I can call you whatever I want! Now get out of my tree house, Penguin!” I ordered.
“I’ll leave when I want to, Toad!”
“Shut up, why don’t you? I didn’t even want you to come into my tree house.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No,” I hissed, “I didn’t.”
She stuck out her neck and waved a finger in my face. “Then why did you invite me over in the first place?”
“Because my parents made me, you bonehead! Your mom told my mom that you were a loser and had no friends, so my mom forced me to hang out with you!”
She gasped. “I’m not a loser!”
“You are. That’s why you have no friends!”
“I don’t want friends,” she said. “I like being alone. People are annoying, like you!”
“Yeah, well, how about you go back to being alone!”
“I will!”
“Good!”
“Great!”
“Greater great!”
“Greater great, great!”
“Whatever, loser. Just go,” I said, rolling my eyes. I was sick of her being in my space, breathing in my tree-house air. I hated that a girl like her was able to breathe the same air as me. I hated everything about Kierra Hughes, and I wanted her out of my life as soon as possible. “That’s why you’re weird with your brace face,” I shouted to drive my point home that I wanted nothing to do with her.
I saw her eyes flash with tears, and I felt bad right away.
I was no better than the other kids.
I was such a dick.
Before I could apologize, Kierra puffed out her chest, made a fist, and shoved it straight into my gut, making me fall to the floor.
“Ouch!” I blurted out, rubbing the elbow that had slammed into the wooden floor. “That hurt.”
“That’s what you get, you stupid boy! I never want to talk to you again.”
Before I could reply, I heard Mom shouting from outside of the tree house. “Gabriel! Gabriel, get down here, will you? Kierra, you come down, too.”
My stomach knotted up, knowing she was probably going to yell at us both for fighting. I pushed myself up. “See what you did? You got us in trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Kierra stated as she climbed down the tree-house ladder. I followed her, ready to defend myself.
“It was her fault, Mom! She—” After I hit the last step of the ladder, I turned around to face my mom and stopped talking when I saw her eyes. She was sobbing uncontrollably as she shook her head back and forth. “What’s wrong?” I asked. I’d never seen Mom cry, except for when she laughed so hard that tears fell down her cheeks. But this wasn’t that kind of crying. This was the kind of crying that scared me.
She combed her hair behind her ears and hurried over to me. “We have to get to the hospital, Gabriel, okay? We have to go now. Kierra, I tried to call your parents, but they didn’t answer, so you must come with us.”