Page 19 of Unspoken Words
“Of course it is.” She huffed, picked up a leaf, and gave it a dirty look before putting it down again. “But if we don’t say it to begin with, we’d never do it, right?”
“Right,” I murmured.
Under her bubbly, goofy personality, Ellie was smart, which I gathered had something to do with all the reading she did, or maybe it was because her dad was a teacher.
Reaching forward, I picked up the leaf she’d put down. “How many books do you read in a week?”
“What?”
“Books.” I nodded to the worn one next to her notebook. “You read them, yeah?”
She rolled her eyes at my sarcasm. “Of course I do.”
“Well, how many then?” I scrunched the bone-dry leaf in my hand and it instantly crumbled into tiny pieces.
Ellie wrinkled her nose. “Um … maybe one or two. Why?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Do you read?”
“No, not really.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because you get to escape into a world outside of your own.”
Meh.That sounded like a waste of time to me. You couldn’t ‘escape’ the real world even if you tried. It caught up to you, always, and reminded you of how much it sucked.
Stretching my legs, I stood up because I didn’t want to talk about books or life or pretending that life wasn’t real by sticking my nose in a book.
“What are you doing?” Ellie narrowed her eyes as she watched me snatch up the fishing rod from its propped position against the tree.
“I’m going fishing.”
“What? Ew!” She shuddered dramatically, her body contorting like a giant spaghetti noodle.
The sight of her squirming was hilarious, and I couldn’t help but want to taunt her. It was fun, especially when she got snooty. “You don’t eat fish?”
She scoffed. “I never said that.”
“You do realise they don’t grow on trees, right? That someone has to actually catch them and remove them from the water so that you can eat them?”
Ellie stood up and brushed herself down, something shealwaysdid after sitting on the ground. “Yes, Snarky McSmarty-pants, I do. That doesn’t mean it’s not gross.”
I chuckled at her stupid insult. “What’s gross about it?”
“What’s NOT gross about it? Hm …” she drawled, placing her hand on her hip and tapping her chin with her pointer finger. “Let me enlighten you. How about scales, bait, blood, fish guts … fish smell. The list goes on. YUK!”
“You’re a chicken, Eloise Mitchell. I thought you were tougher than that.”
Deliberately turning my back to her, I walked toward the river while counting down seconds in my head until she objected and came after me, because she would follow; I just knew she would. I didn’t know Ellie all that well, but in the days we’d spent together, I’d tapped into her competitive streak.
Eight, seven, six …
She huffed.
