Free Thorn: Carter Kids #2 by Chloe Walsh Page A

before mailing it.
    Crowds of people brushed past me, carrying on with their day-to-day lives, oblivious to the turmoil churning around inside of me.
    Maybe I had too much pride, or maybe I was a coward, but as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months and then years, I found myself too afraid to send that damn letter. I wanted to, but I was frightened of what he would say, or worse, what he didn’t say if he chose to behave the way I had in the beginning.
    My life wasn’t like the fucking Notebook. My Noah wasn’t at war, he was a criminal serving time for a serious crime, and I sure as hell wasn’t anybody’s Allie.
    I didn’t have money or a rich fiancé.
    No, all I had was a stack of bills longer than both my arms, and a best friend who was more emotionally fucked up and closed off than I was.
    Tucking the envelope back into my coat pocket, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Happy birthday, Noah.”

 

     
    “KILL ME NOW.”
    The half snarl, half roar that came from Hope’s bedroom was my first warning of trouble.
    The large stuffed gorilla she slept with at night being hurled halfway across the landing from her room into mine was my second.
    “What’s wrong?” I dared to ask, unsure if I really wanted to know.
    “I’ve lost sixty thousand words,” she hissed, stalking into my bedroom, looking somewhat deranged with her hair in knots and standing up in forty different directions. “Gone, freaking lost. Forever. That’s what’s wrong.”
    With a yodel of sheer despair, Hope threw herself down on my bed beside me and grabbed my pillow. “That piece of crap computer just crashed again and wiped all of my work again . I have a deadline I can’t meet, I have obligations I can’t fulfill, and now I’m officially screwed,” she moaned, covering her face with my pillow as she lay on the flat of her back. “All that work for nothing. Just leave me here to rot. I’m done. I quit. I retire.”
    I told you to back up your work , was on the tip of my tongue, but I forced myself to refrain.
    Hope was right about one thing.
    Her computer was a piece of crap.
    It had been giving her trouble for months now. “Don’t be so dramatic, Hope. You work for yourself and your readers will understand if you need to push the date back a few months. So just calm your shit and buy a new computer,” I told her. She really needed an upgrade. “But maybe take a shower before you go into town.” I took a quick whiff of my friend and gagged. “I get that you’re in your hermit, locked-in-the-house writer mode, but I think you should get out of the apartment for a day.” With me, I silently added. I knew full well why Hope preferred to hang around with her new friends; they didn’t remind her of the past. They didn’t know about Jordan, and she could pretend when she was with them. God knows, I understood it, but I didn’t like it. Hope was vulnerable and I hated to see her being taken advantage of.
    “You don’t get it, Teegs,” she moaned, ignoring the shower part. “I started on that one – I wrote my very first book on that piece of crap. It holds sentimental value. And I don’t want to jinx myself. For all I know I’ve been incredibly lucky. That computer could be my lucky charm.”
    I rolled my eyes. “You’re not lucky, you’re bloody talented.” Jumping off the bed, I reached forward and grabbed her hand, pulling her miserable, stinky, overgrown ass off my bed. “The words are in here,” I told her, tapping her head, “not in that piece of shit plastic in there.”
    I was used to Hope’s crazy writer mode, and I understood when she needed to dive into a book and stay there, but she was like a dazzled baby bunny when she came back up for air.
    This time was more severe than usual. Hope only got this bad around the anniversary. It kind of ruined her, and her being ruined kind of saved me from going down that similar spiral.
    “I don’t know,” she mumbled, tugging on the sleeves