Page 127

I lounged on the couch and was reading a book when my phone jingled.
And it was a message from V.
I scrambled to open Discord.
V
I don’t know. I hate to say this, but what if this has reached its natural end?
My heart sank.
What do you mean?
We’ve both been so busy. We hardly read anymore. And I would bet that both of us have people that we care about now.
You have someone.
I do. Don’t you?
I wanted to tell him no, but that wasn’t exactly true. I had Levi now, and I couldn’t deny that he meantsomethingto me.
I don’t like endings. Especially when they’re not happy ones.
I’m sorry, but I think we let this go too far for too long. We should focus on the people in our lives.
Okay. Thank you for reading with me.
It was one of my greatest pleasures.
I let out a long sigh and closed the app. Tears pinpricked my eyes, even though I knew he wasn’t entirely wrong.
Still, I wished I knew who he was. I wished I’d asked more questions.
The mystery would haunt me.
I tried to put it out of my mind as I finished my book. When I was done, I wanted to tell someone about it, and for the first time, I found myself missing having a book club to talk to. It was so much easier to organize what I was thinking about the books when I was able to talk about it, and the sense of community was something I hadn’t experienced since then. V had helped, but that was over now.
Levi got home at six, his phone glued to his ear.
“Yes, Mom, I’m gonna ask her.” His voice was soft and he looked at me apologetically. “No, she likes you guys. I’m sure she’d love to. I’m home now, so I need to go.”
He said his goodbyes and put his phone away.
“Sorry about that. Mom called to check in and asked if you wanted to go plant shopping with them tomorrow.”
I shouldn’t. I needed to rest to be sure a migraine didn’t start.
But Iwantedto.
“Yeah, of course I’ll go.” I plastered a smile on my face. “It should be fun.”
“And after, we go car shopping.”
“We’re staying busy,” I said with a laugh. “Great.”
“I think what I’m more concerned with is whether or not we’re finally alone in our house.”
“I’m pretty sure we are. Other than the gnomes that steal my socks. Why?”