Read Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) for Free Online

 
    “It’s not her phone number—it’s her address.”
    “Her address ?” Dad sounded incredulous. “You must have some serious game, Cade. Where does she live?”
    Serious game? My dad was trying to be hip again, apparently. I lifted one shoulder in a shrug, not wanting to tell him about the pen pals idea, but knowing he’d pester me until I did. “I dunno where she lives. I haven’t looked at it yet. Somewhere in Bloomfield, I think.”
    “Bloomfield, huh? The ritzy area. Her pops must be loaded.”
    I shrugged again, my standby response to pretty much everything. “I guess. I think he works for Chrysler or something. An executive or vice president. Something like that.”
    Dad huffed in sarcastic laughter. “‘Something like that.’ How informative. Did you learn anything definite about her?”
    “Her name is Ever Eliot. She lives in Bloomfield. She’s into painting and sculpture. She has a twin sister named Eden.” I wasn’t going to mention the fact that her mom had died in a car accident. It seemed like it would be a breach of confidence to tell him. “She’s beautiful.”
    “You like her?”  
    I shrugged yet again. “I guess.”
    “You guess.” He shook his head in frustration and then turned up the radio as “Springsteen” by Eric Church came on, and we both tuned in to listen. When the song ended, he turned it down again. “So this Ever girl aside, how was Interlochen?”
    “It was good.”
    He waited a few beats, glancing at me expectantly. “Thousands of dollars and three weeks , and all I get out of you is ‘it was good’?”
    Ugh. Adults always wanted more information from me than I ever knew how to give them. “What do you want, Dad, a day-by-day breakdown? I don’t know. I learned about all sorts of artistic bullshit. Angles, shading, perspective, composition. I tried my hand at oil painting and watercolor. Even tried clay sculpture, which I suck at. I took a class on drawing anatomy, which was pretty awesome. It was camp. I swam. Played basketball with some of the guys from my cabin.”
    “And met a pretty girl.”
    “And that. Yeah.”
    “Sounds like a great time.” He grabbed my shoulder in his iron-hard fist and shook me, which was meant to be affectionate, but ended up feeling rough, like he was trying to be casual, or playful. “Think you’ll go back next year?”
    I’d been thinking about that a lot the last few days. “Maybe? I don’t really know. I’m torn. I did have a good time, and I learned a lot, but…it was like a whole extra summer of school, just for art. Summers at the ranch with Gramps…it’s just…different. “
    Dad nodded. “Well, think about it, I guess. You’ve got a year. I know Gramps would be happy to have you back next summer, but do what you want for you.”
    We kept quiet after that, listening to country and classic rock as the miles passed. The closer we got to home, the more pinched and worried Dad’s expression became. I opened my mouth several times to ask him what was wrong, but never actually spoke. He’d pass it off, brush it off, say it was nothing for me to worry about. But if he was still acting stressed or worried after three weeks, there was something going on that my parents weren’t telling me.
    At home, I tried to ignore it, but as the summer days dwindled, bringing me closer to the start of ninth grade and my fifteenth birthday, I couldn’t help noticing the whispered conversations while I was watching TV, the increasingly frequent times they left together on mysterious “errands,” or the way Mom seemed to be withdrawing into herself. But when I walked into a room or started to ask Mom if she was okay, she pasted a smile on her face and changed the topic to some variation of whether I needed any more school supplies.  
    When I got home from my absolutely shitty first day of ninth grade, I sat at my desk in my room with the door closed, dug my American literature notebook from my backpack, and sat down to