Filed to story: My Life with the Walter Boys Book (I & II) PDF Free
“Don’t worry,” Heather chimed in. “It will get done.”
“When? We have”—I paused to look up at the clock—“exactly twenty minutes to finish ours and we haven’t taken one picture.”
“I don’t know,” Riley told me. “We just will.”
“Oh. My. God!” Heather cried a second later. “I have the most brilliant idea ever! Why don’t we finish the project at the Walters’ house this weekend? We could even do a sleepover!”
Riley frowned in disapproval. “I don’t know, Heather,” she said slowly. “It’s kinda rude to invite ourselves over, especially since we just met Jackie.”
A jolt of excitement coursed through me. Not only would a sleepover be the perfect solution to our project crisis, but it also could be my chance to cement myself into this group of friends. Even with Lucy’s help—she introduced me to everyone she knew at Hawks—it was never easy for me to make friends. Without her now, it was going to be even harder for me to meet people.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as I thought about my sister. Having Riley and Heather over would be a good thing. Maybe I could ask Katherine after school if they could stay over Saturday. It was almost as if Lucy was with me, urging me to bond with these new people.
“No, no, it’s fine!” I burst out, looking around at the group. “I’ll just ask Mrs. Walter if we can have a sleepover when I get home today. Is Saturday okay with you both?”
Riley studied me for a moment, unsure, so I forced a bigger smile onto my face. “I suppose so,” she finally said after a long moment of hesitation. “I’m gonna have to pick out my cutest pajamas.”
***
Later that day, after Katherine had agreed to the sleepover and I called Riley to tell her the good news, I made my way downstairs with the intention of thanking Katherine for letting my friends come over. As I neared the kitchen, I heard an angry voice.
“But, Aunt Kathy, she’s only been living here for a week
, and you’re letting her invite friends into our home?”
“Lee,” Katherine said with a disapproving tone, “how can you say such a thing?”
“It’s not like it’s her house to invite people to.”
“Honey, that poor girl has no family. This is her home now, whether you like it or not. I’m just trying to put a little happiness into an awful situation, and you should be doing the same. You of all people should understand that.”
I came to a halt so fast it felt like I was on a roller coaster, the safety bar jerking me back as the ride came to a sudden end.
“Come on, Aunt Kathy—“
I didn’t stay long enough to hear what Lee said. He was right—this wasn’t my home and I certainly would never fit in here. I swept back up the stairs, not caring if I sent a few DVDs flying down in my wake, and hurtled down the hallway toward my room. I was moving with such momentum that when I crashed into something rock hard, I was sent sprawling back on my butt.
“Son of a…” Cole grumbled. He was rubbing his head, his jaw clenched in pain, as we both sat on the floor in a daze. When he glanced over and realized that I was on the ground next to him, he shook his head. “Damn girl, for someone so short, you’re like a mini bulldozer.”
“Sorry,” I replied and scrambled to my feet. My head had that light, whooshing feeling when you stand up too fast, and there were black dots blinking in front of my eyes, but I pushed past Cole, determined to make it to my room.
“Hey, New York! Wait up,” he called out. I could feel him stumbling after me, but I didn’t stop, throwing open my door with such force that it slammed into the wall, rattling the bookcase nearest it. “Jackie, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied, trying to slam the door shut before he could get in.
“That,” said Cole, while sticking his foot in the path of the closing door, “is complete bullshit.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it right now, okay?” I said, practically begging him to understand. I didn’t want to be with anyone at the moment. He couldn’t see my tears. Nobody could.
“Was it something I did?” he asked in confusion. I was willing to bet that no girl had ever turned down his shoulder to cry on before.
I shook my head.
“Hold on,” he said, and there was that look in his eyes, the one I was so afraid of. It was the poor Jackie look. I clenched my fists in anticipation, knuckles cracking as I waited for him to mention my family. But he didn’t. “Is this about the whole sleepover thing?” asked Cole.
I blinked back at him. It wasn’t what I was expecting him to say, which was a relief, but if he already knew about the sleepover, it meant that gossip spread like wildfire in this house.
“It is, isn’t it?” Cole said when I didn’t respond.
It’s not just about that, I wanted to correct him. It’s that my family is dead, and that you know. “Did Lee tell you?” I responded instead. “He doesn’t really like me, does he? It was a bad idea anyway. I shouldn’t be overstepping.”
Back in New York, after my breakdown, I taught myself how to control my feelings. It was vital to my future success because I could never lose myself like that again. So I built a wall inside my mind to keep back my flood of emotions. But here, it was harder to maintain. The Walters’ house was like nothing I had ever experienced before: disorganized, rowdy, and unpredictable. Without a proper foothold, some type of steadiness, I was losing myself in the chaos. Lee’s comment had put a crack in my wall, and I felt like the whole thing was going to shatter.
“Jackie, you can’t listen to Lee,” he said in calm, clear-cut voice, the kind people use to convince you of something. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just ignore him.”
I nodded mechanically as I stared past him. Sure, I understood what Cole was trying to say, some sympathetic form of assurance, but it didn’t matter what he told me. It was kind of like when people apologized to me at my family’s funeral—it was just words, a script that they all were required to recite. They said they were sorry, but in reality they could never really comprehend what I was going through. So it didn’t matter if Lee was only being mean and I should disregard him, because he was speaking the truth.
And then it was almost as if Cole understood what I was thinking. “Hey,” he said, putting both of his hands on my shoulders. He gave me a little shake, forcing me to look back at him. “I’m really sorry my cousin is being such a jerk. Let me make it up to you.”
***
“These are the horse stables,” Cole said, holding the door open for me. He’d offered to give me a tour of the ranch, and I agreed. I needed someone, anyone to take my mind off things.
I could see the stables from my bedroom window. When I noticed the main building from afar, I presumed that it was just a barn, but now as I stepped inside, I realized that it was much bigger. The first thing that hit me was the smell of animals and hay. It was overwhelmingly pungent—the kind of smell that was so heavy you could feel it in your lungs when you breathed in.
We were standing at the front of a long row, stalls on either side of us. A few were empty, but huge animals occupied the rest, snorting and swishing their tails. They varied in color from dark brown to soft gray, but to me, they were all equally daunting. I could feel Cole directly behind me, and for some strange reason, I found that reassuring.
“Besides the horses,” he told me in an easy voice, “the best thing about this place is the loft.”
He coaxed me forward, his hand a guiding pressure on my back. As we made our way to the other side of the stables, Cole pointed out the different horses, telling me each of their names. In one of the stalls, a man was brushing down a black mare that Cole called Raisin, and when he heard us, the man glanced up and nodded in our direction.
“Who’s that?” I whispered as we continued walking.
“Just one of the stable hands,” Cole told me. “My dad has a lot of employees. It takes quite a few people to run a ranch, and my brothers and I can’t always be there to help him with the work.”
By the time we reached the end of the stalls, I’d counted twenty-four horses in all. Cole had stopped in front of a wooden ladder and I craned my neck, trying to see what was on the second level. Stepping onto the first rung, he started to climb. About halfway up, he looked at me over his shoulder.