Read Online The Unloved by Jennifer Snyder - Free Book Online Page B

smile-through-your-pain trick. “I do.”
    My confidence in knowing her so well made creases appear once more in her forehead just above her perfect little eyebrows. She doubted me. It was written all over her face.
     
     

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
     
    JULIE
     
    How could he possibly think he knows the person I am today? When he left I was just a few days shy of my fifteenth birthday. I’d changed a lot in two years. “Yeah? So tell me something about myself, since you think you still know me so well and all.”
    The smile fell from his face and I watched as his lips pressed into a thin line. This was something I remembered about him—the look he got when he was concentrating hard. My heart began to pound and I began to analyze why. Was it because I hoped that he didn’t know me anymore as well as he thought he did? If that was the case, then I might be able to allow myself to feel a little of what I’d been feeling regarding him without letting him in too close so I wouldn’t get trampled when he eventually decided to move on. Or was my heart pounding because this was Nick I was talking about, and I knew that he’d surprise me with all that he still knew about me? All that he remembered.
    Nick let out a breath and his eyes met mine. I wanted to look away; I should have looked away, but I couldn’t. I was trapped in those hazel eyes with as many flecks of green as gold.
    “Well…I remember summer was always your favorite season, even though it meant being out of school, your only escape. I remember the scar you got on your knee when we were nine from running on the gravel in front of the shed. I remember your favorite pastime used to be to lie in the backyard and make shapes out of the clouds. And I remember how hard you used to grip my hand in the dark on the way back to your house from mine, even though you claimed you weren’t afraid of the dark…but I always knew you were. Either that or you just really liked to hold my hand.” He winked and flashed me a grin that would have made my knees weak if I’d been standing.
    I stared at him for a moment, amazed by all the things from growing up with me that he did remember, but at the same time searching for a way to make this moment, whatever it was turning into, disappear. “Those aren’t things about me; those are memories of me.”
    I hated that I’d said that. I hated the look that entered his eyes then, like I’d crushed him because I hadn’t believed him at all, like I’d just been waiting to tear whatever he planned on saying apart from the beginning.
    “Okay, that’s fair,” he said. “You always shuffle your feet in the dirt or at the ground whenever you’re nervous about something when talking to someone. Either that or you pick at your cuticles. You like blueberry Poptarts; your favorite color is blue; you’re the only person I’ve ever met who likes it when it rains; you’re afraid of heights…and the dark, although you won’t admit it. You got your nose pierced like you’d always wanted; you have a fetish for baggy sweaters and hooded jackets; and you don’t smile nearly enough anymore. There, does that cover enough, the old you and the new?”
    I was speechless. How could he remember such little, mundane things about me? And so many so easily?
    “Oh, and one more thing.” He stood and walked into the kitchen. I could hear him rummaging around and the sound of a fridge opening. After a few minutes he came back holding two glasses—one filled with a brownish, bubbly drink and the other filled with milk—and a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies tucked under his arm. “You dunk your cookies in Pepsi,” he added with a smile.
    I laughed. I laughed so hard and it felt incredible. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed for real. Nick sat down on the floor beside me and leaned his back against the couch.
    “There’s no coffee table so be careful not to spill your soda. Mom will kill me.” He gestured to the stained carpet and rolled