Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 100612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Terrible idea? Yes.
Will I regret it later? Absolutely.
I’m throwing caution to the wind—Macy has me wound up and there is no stopping me now, so here it goes:
I like you.
Wow. That was fast. No lead-up, just straight to the heart of my impending humiliation. Doom, if you will.
But it’s true, so here it is. My heart on a platter. The thing is, my kind of like isn’t the casual “you’re cool to hang out with, bro” way, but a “you’re basically living rent-free in my brain and I’m ready to start charging you for utilities” kind of way.
It’s infuriating, actually.
YOU are infuriating. The way you slop paint everywhere during prom prep like a five-year-old who just discovered finger painting, or the way you talk to me at my locker when I’m already two seconds from being late to class.
Even watching you skate backward the other night? ANNOYING. How do you make skating backward annoying?!
Explain yourself.
Here’s another thing: I didn’t plan for this to happen. Girl Scout’s honor. I thought we’d get through this weird blackmail-fueled prom arrangement, take a few awkward pictures, and go our separate ways with maybe one funny memory to laugh about later. Blackmail, by the way, is NOT a romantic meet-cute—just throwing that out there to acknowledge the fact.
Why did you have to go and kiss me??
Then you did it again. And again.
And now look! Surprise! I LIKE YOU.
Look, I don’t expect you to feel the same way.
Honestly, I probably don’t deserve it. But I like you enough that I need you to know. And I also like you enough to want you to have a great time at prom, even if the person who you’ll be having that time with is Maddie Miller.
I needed to get this out before we graduate and move on with our lives and you never have to see me again. I don’t want to leave things unsaid, even if it means risking things getting weird between us. Please don’t hate me for this, or for saying it in the most awkward way possible.
I like you.
And I have to stop saying it. I told Macy everything…confessed it, actually, and she was properly mortified by my behavior. So.
Our deal is over—I’m releasing you because I want you to be with the person who makes you happy, even if I’m not that person. UGH, that sounds SO DRAMATIC, doesn’t it?
Anyway. Thank you for being amazing and putting up with me for so long. You are now officially free to go.
—Harper
P.S. Burn after reading.
Chapter 33
Easton
The she shed is quiet.
For a long while, I stare at the books on my mom’s shelves, reading all the spines. Barely registering their titles, not a thought in my brain except the mess I’m in.
I spy a cord and reach over to plug it in so the fairy lights go on, then lean my head back against her pink velvet sofa. Kick my Crocs off and dig my toes into her decorative rug.
Mom doesn’t know it, but her shed is the one place where I can clear my head. I come in here more often than she realizes, preferring it to my bedroom.
She doesn’t know I’m home, let alone in her shed. She thinks I’ve already left for Marcus’s to pick up the suit I’m borrowing for the dance. Dad said it was a waste of money to rent a tux.
I remove my eyes from the shelves, latching them onto the sheet of loose-leaf paper in my hand. I take in Harper’s name written at the bottom again, her handwriting, with its curvy script and cutesy i’s.
I’ve read her letter at least a dozen times, trying to make sense of it, but there are so many fucking words and they’re all jumbled together. Written in haste.
It’s an essay that’s longer than anything I’ve written in English class, for crying out loud.
I look at it again, skimming the lines.
Why did you have to go and kiss me?? Then you did it again. And again. And now look! Surprise!
I LIKE YOU.
Look, I don’t expect you to feel the same way.
Honestly, I probably don’t deserve it.
She is not wrong: She probably doesn’t. Some of this is her fault. If Harper had let me go, hadn’t held me captive in her yard—or hadn’t started blackmailing me—I would not be in this predicament.
She could have let me off the ground and let me run away as I’d planned on doing and kept her yap shut the way everyone else in our senior class who knew about the prank was doing.
I sigh.
I don’t know when things changed for me, either.
Maybe it was that night in her car after the movie, when we kissed like we meant it. Or those times in her garage when she looked so stubborn, wanting things done a certain way. Harper clearly did not need my help to finish any of that shit…she’s more than capable and we both know it.