Free Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) by Jasinda Wilder

in books. I have, at least. But now I see that it’s true.  
    I guess my point is, for me, it was just bam, she’s gone. For you…watching it happen? I don’t know. I’m just so sorry you’re going through it, and I wish I could say something or do something that would help you.
    My dad kind of lost it, too. I think I already said that, but it’s worth repeating. He’s never been the same since. I don’t know. I’m fifteen, and I need my parents, but I only have one and he’s not really a parent anymore. He goes to work, and he’s there all day, and he doesn’t really care what we do. He’s just…a paycheck, I guess. Which, if I have to be basically an orphan, at least I don’t have to worry about starving, right? #alwayslookforthebrightside
    Sorry for the hashtag. Everyone at school uses them. Like, ALL THE TIME. It kind of irritates me sometimes, all the text messages and Facebook posts with hashtags in them, but it’s become part of the popular method of expression, you know? So I sort of end up using them.  
    I know I’m rambling. Sorry. I’m supposed to be doing homework, but I’m putting it off. I’d rather spend my time writing you a letter. I know I look forward to your letters, so I guess I’m assuming you look forward to mine, too. I reread your letters, and I have them all saved in a shoebox. Is that weird? It’s a box from a pair of Steve Maddens that Daddy bought me the week before Mom died. The shoes don’t fit anymore, but the box is awesome, and they were seriously killer shoes.  
    I guess you don’t care about shoes. Guys don’t, right?
    God, this letter is like four pages long. I’ll sign off and do my homework I guess. Write me soon!

    Dearly and sincerely,
    Your forever friend,
    Ever

    PS: You can start and end your letters however you want. It doesn’t matter to me. Nothing will sound stupid to me, I promise.
    PSS: No, and yes. A photo is a picture, and a picture can be a photo. But a picture is not always a photo, while a photo is always a picture. LOL. Sounds like an algebra word problem, doesn’t it? The point is, you can call it a photo or photograph, or a picture. I tend to use “photo” since that sounds more…professional, I guess. That’s just me, though. I didn’t have an envelope big enough to send a photo without bending it, so I’ll get some big envelopes and include one in the next letter, okay?

    I read the letter four times. Especially the “dearly and sincerely” part. And the “Your forever friend” part. I wanted that to mean something, to be deep and personal and meaningful and lasting.  
    Or I suppose I wanted anything to be all of that, since nothing in my life right then was.

painted by pain

    Ever

    I dropped Caden’s latest letter onto the bed and cried. It was for him that I cried, but also for me. His mom’s death reminded me all too poignantly of my own dead mother. I knew there was no comparison in the ways we’d lost our moms, but I also knew pain was pain, always relative to the person feeling it. All I could go by was my own pain, and try to empathize with Caden. He’d lost her in the most horrible way possible: slowly.  
    His pain bled through the pages of his letter. It was in the way he was clearly drunk while writing it, in the uncharacteristic misspellings, in the things he didn’t say. I’d learned to read between the lines of his words to see what he wasn’t saying, but was trying to. He was lost and alone and desperate.  
    I wished I could do something besides write him another letter. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have a license or a car, and Daddy was at work, probably not due home until nine or ten at night. He stayed at work later and later these days. He’d be at work already by the time I got up for school at six, and he wouldn’t be home until eight at the soonest, usually later. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home at all. He slept in his office, I supposed.
    The only thing I could do was write Caden a letter.