Read Online Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) by Jasinda Wilder - Free Book Online
Authors: Jasinda Wilder
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spilling around me, bathing me with sundeath glory.
I wasn’t sure that metaphor made any sense, even as it passed through my head, but it sounded poetic.
A robin’s egg–blue Toyota Prius slipped quietly down my street, a lance of golden light slicing across the hood and then the roof, and then the little car was gone, rounding a corner onto Garfield Avenue. The passage of the Prius seemed significant, somehow. Like it meant something in some way I was simply too drunk to comprehend.
I blinked, glanced down at the letter in my hand. I realized I hadn’t addressed it. I swore out loud, stumbled around in a full circle before I managed to find the front door. Only instead of going through it, I fell backward into the porch swing, an aged bench with spotted silver chain links that creaked when the swing moved. Oh, god. Oh, god. The swing swept me off my feet, and now I was swinging backward and forward, backward and forward, swinging, sunlight moving and shifting.
The letter. I still had my shading pencil behind my ear. I pinched it between deliberate fingers, set the envelope on the wide, smooth-worn armrest, and wrote my return address in small, shaky, and neat letters. Then, in the center, I wrote her name. EVER ELIOT . That was good. Each letter was perfectly formed, neat and angular. Her street name and number floated through my head, and I focused all my attention on making the pencil do my bidding. 17889 Crabtree Road, Bloomfield Hills . I couldn’t remember the zip code, for some reason. I racked my brain, but it wouldn’t come. 48073? No, that was Royal Oak. Why did I know the zip code for Royal Oak, but not for Ever in Bloomfield Hills, when I wrote it on her letters every week?
Aha! I lifted my left hip and clumsily fished her letter from my back pocket. 48301, that was it.
I penciled in the zip code and made my way down the three steps to the sidewalk, holding on to the railing and measuring each motion with extreme care. At the bottom of the steps, I fixed my gaze on the mailbox at the end of the driveway; it suddenly looked to be a mile away. I resolved to make it to the mailbox and back without embarrassing myself. It wasn’t far, was it? Only twenty feet or so. But when the street and sidewalk and grass were tipping and bucking the way they were, twenty feet might have been a thousand. I left the safety of the railing and took a step, feeling like an astronaut moving away from the protective shelter of a spaceship on a faraway planet. I focused on the mailbox, not counting steps, and trying to act completely normal. Did I look as messed up as I was? I felt like I had a blazing neon sign plastered on my forehead, announcing to the world that I was drunker than anyone had ever been in the history of drunkenness.
I made it to the mailbox after an eternity of carefully placing one foot precisely in front of the other. I opened the black metal front, slid the letter in, closed it, and lifted the red flag. Wait, had I put a stamp on it? I opened the box again and peered blearily at the letter. Yes, old Ben with his idiotic little smirk stared up at me, slightly cockeyed on the envelope.
Now to make it back. No problem at all.
Except for that huge canyon of a crack at the edge of the driveway. When did that get there? And why was it suddenly such a massive problem? It grabbed my toe and sent me sprawling in the grass. Green blades tickled my toes, my cheek, my palms. Even lying down, things spun.
This was not fun.
Mom was still gone, and being drunk didn’t help. Well…maybe it did, just a little. The pain was distant. It didn’t feel like pain—it felt like something I knew about, like knowing I had a test to take in a few months. It would happen, and it would suck, but I didn’t have to think about it right now.
I had to get up. I couldn’t stay here on the grass. That would raise suspicion if anyone saw me. People didn’t go around lying on their front lawns
I wasn’t sure that metaphor made any sense, even as it passed through my head, but it sounded poetic.
A robin’s egg–blue Toyota Prius slipped quietly down my street, a lance of golden light slicing across the hood and then the roof, and then the little car was gone, rounding a corner onto Garfield Avenue. The passage of the Prius seemed significant, somehow. Like it meant something in some way I was simply too drunk to comprehend.
I blinked, glanced down at the letter in my hand. I realized I hadn’t addressed it. I swore out loud, stumbled around in a full circle before I managed to find the front door. Only instead of going through it, I fell backward into the porch swing, an aged bench with spotted silver chain links that creaked when the swing moved. Oh, god. Oh, god. The swing swept me off my feet, and now I was swinging backward and forward, backward and forward, swinging, sunlight moving and shifting.
The letter. I still had my shading pencil behind my ear. I pinched it between deliberate fingers, set the envelope on the wide, smooth-worn armrest, and wrote my return address in small, shaky, and neat letters. Then, in the center, I wrote her name. EVER ELIOT . That was good. Each letter was perfectly formed, neat and angular. Her street name and number floated through my head, and I focused all my attention on making the pencil do my bidding. 17889 Crabtree Road, Bloomfield Hills . I couldn’t remember the zip code, for some reason. I racked my brain, but it wouldn’t come. 48073? No, that was Royal Oak. Why did I know the zip code for Royal Oak, but not for Ever in Bloomfield Hills, when I wrote it on her letters every week?
Aha! I lifted my left hip and clumsily fished her letter from my back pocket. 48301, that was it.
I penciled in the zip code and made my way down the three steps to the sidewalk, holding on to the railing and measuring each motion with extreme care. At the bottom of the steps, I fixed my gaze on the mailbox at the end of the driveway; it suddenly looked to be a mile away. I resolved to make it to the mailbox and back without embarrassing myself. It wasn’t far, was it? Only twenty feet or so. But when the street and sidewalk and grass were tipping and bucking the way they were, twenty feet might have been a thousand. I left the safety of the railing and took a step, feeling like an astronaut moving away from the protective shelter of a spaceship on a faraway planet. I focused on the mailbox, not counting steps, and trying to act completely normal. Did I look as messed up as I was? I felt like I had a blazing neon sign plastered on my forehead, announcing to the world that I was drunker than anyone had ever been in the history of drunkenness.
I made it to the mailbox after an eternity of carefully placing one foot precisely in front of the other. I opened the black metal front, slid the letter in, closed it, and lifted the red flag. Wait, had I put a stamp on it? I opened the box again and peered blearily at the letter. Yes, old Ben with his idiotic little smirk stared up at me, slightly cockeyed on the envelope.
Now to make it back. No problem at all.
Except for that huge canyon of a crack at the edge of the driveway. When did that get there? And why was it suddenly such a massive problem? It grabbed my toe and sent me sprawling in the grass. Green blades tickled my toes, my cheek, my palms. Even lying down, things spun.
This was not fun.
Mom was still gone, and being drunk didn’t help. Well…maybe it did, just a little. The pain was distant. It didn’t feel like pain—it felt like something I knew about, like knowing I had a test to take in a few months. It would happen, and it would suck, but I didn’t have to think about it right now.
I had to get up. I couldn’t stay here on the grass. That would raise suspicion if anyone saw me. People didn’t go around lying on their front lawns
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