Read Online All You Need Is Love by Emily Franklin - Free Book Online Page A

have fun. Bring me back some cheese.”
    “Will do,” Dad says. “And you know the rules, right?”
    “Yep, no overnight guests, all school and dorm rules apply,” I say in handbook monotone. Dad gives an affinitive nod, then looks at me again.
    “What?” I ask.
    “Nothing,” Dad says and then thinks better of it and adds, “Just stay you, okay?”
    “What does that mean?” I ask.
    Dad sighs, then smiles, like he’s trying to be upbeat. “I notice — it’s that you sometimes give the air of being a chameleon. That you want to fit in with everyone…”
    I furrow my brow. “Isn’t that what teenagers do? Try to fit in?”
    “But you’re not like that…”
    “I know, I’m just so special. Look, Dad, I am not the image of conformity you might think I am. I’m kind of different, if you didn’t notice.”
    Dad touches my hair and I recoil, instantly pissed off at him but also guilty for feeling that way. “You think I’m changing in a bad way — but the reality is I’m just growing up and you can’t deal with it.”
    Dad grabs his keys, deposits a peck on my cheek and says softly, “I know you’re you’re getting older. I just want to see you making smart decisions about your life, the people you’re with…it does matter.”
    “I know it matters,” I say. “And I’m trying.” I don’t add the part about needing the space in which to try and fail or try and succeed. It’s not that he wants me to be this clichéd little girl or anything, I just think he wants me to be living up to my full potential at all times. I can’t doodle, I have to make a piece of art. I can’t jot down ideas, I have to write a tome. I can’t hang out, because what does that achieve?
    I just watch him leave and then look at what the mail brought in…a pretty paper envelope addressed to me.
    When I open it, I’m surprised and psyched to find that Nick Adams Cooper has written a thoughtful, interesting and funny note. Nick Cooper was the only friend of the London titled and entitled set that I really liked . I’m terribly sorry you had to leave so quickly , I read and can hear his careful, deep voice , we never got the chance to say goodbye. We never got the chance to really settle in, did we? Regardless, please know that you are in my thoughts as is your Aunt. Please accept this donation on behalf of me and my parents — you charmed them completely. Should you ever find yourself back on this side of the Atlantic, please look us up.
    Yours,
    Nick Cooper
    Post Script: Enclosed also find Hemingway’s Nick Adams Stories. As you are the only other person aside from me who has a literary name, I hope you’ll enjoy them.
    Nick Cooper’s letter is sweet and caring, and the check enclosed is sizeable without being tacky. I take the money and the card upstairs and feel funny as I read it again. The book I put on my shelf to read at some point, with Nick’s note tucked inside the front cover.
    Nick Cooper is the only one of all of the people I met in London who responded to my mass email and Arabella’s phone calls about the Avon Walk. Why hasn’t Asher written to me? Probably because we’ve spoken on the phone. But why hasn’t he thought to send a card to Mable? Most likely because he’s never met her. But Arabella did — she even made a water color of her flat and sent it to Mass General (Mable asked one of the doctors to hang it up on the wall so she could dream about foreign travel).
    I’m no shrink, but I know enough that maybe I’m not disappointed just in Asher’s lack of written words and mention of Mable. Being away from him isn’t something I ever have much thought to while we were together. It wasn’t like I walked around holding his hands contemplating what might or might not become of us as a couple after my program abroad ended. Maybe I was just too busy falling for him in the here and now. And I’m glad I did, it’s healthy to live for the moment sometimes. But the trouble is that when