Truly (New York Trilogy #1) by Ruthie Knox

Author:Ruthie Knox [Knox, Ruthie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345545268
Google: zXwoAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00IBZ22T8
Publisher: Loveswept
Published: 2014-08-04T23:00:00+00:00

XOXO,

May

After she hit SEND, the message had flown off into cyberspace with a little whooshing sound, and the already familiar aural experience of Dan’s empty house—the hum of the refrigerator, the tiny crashing noises of the ice maker—had begun to wear her down. The watery, hollow feeling returned, worse than before, because she had spent an entire day looking, listening, and waiting to feel some spark of connection to this place, these people, this heritage. But even at the World Trade Center site, she’d been an anthropologist, at best. A participant-observant faking belonging.

Actually, it was worse than that. She’d felt glass-encased, as though everyone around her was part of this city, part of this world, and she was just gliding through it, untouchable and untouched.

She’d felt as though she would never be able to belong here.

“So what do you see?” Ben asked.

“Water.” It was flat and deep blue, the islands plunked on top of it as if on display.

“And?” He pointed across the water to the tall buildings.

“Jersey City?”

“Yep. And if you took a boat up that way, you’d be between Jersey and Manhattan, which makes it what river?”

“The Hudson,” she said dutifully.

“And out that way?”

A garbled announcement came over the loudspeakers, barely audible over the boat’s rumbling diesel engine and the excited chatter of the three Japanese kids to their left.

“Staten Island?”

“Yeah, smart-ass, what else?”

“Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island, and—” She pointed toward the front of the boat. “—Governor’s Island, straight ahead.”

“You did your homework last time.”

“I’m a good student.”

“I bet.”

He smiled a little, and she smiled back.

She didn’t actually feel like needling him. Not if he would smile at her instead. His smile turned him into a different man—turned this ferry trip into something other than what it had been the first time. Probably it didn’t hurt that she was walking around in a cloud of mixed-up, anticipatory excitement, but she didn’t feel excluded this morning. She had her own bubble, with Ben.

Maybe all she’d needed was a friend. An ally.

Maybe she’d just been doing it wrong.

The boat pulled away from the dock. It was a little too cold, the breeze off the water stiff, but it felt good against her face. She inhabited her own body today, as though the pinball and the dancing and those minutes up against a brick wall with Ben between her legs had somehow driven her soul into her fingertips and the balls of her feet, pushed her spirit along her nerve endings so that every step she took and every breath she sucked in testified to her aliveness.

The cold steel of the hull pushed through her jeans at the knee, and the scratchy wool of her sweater rested against her neck. Beside her, Ben’s forearms balanced on the railing, and she looked at the dark hair and his scarred knuckles. Beneath them, blood and veins, muscle and bone.

Alive. Real.

“So what’s the lesson here, tour guide?”

He shrugged and nudged her shoulder with his. “C’mere.” She stepped closer. He turned slightly, lining them up like sardines in a can, and she felt the faint pressure of his lips against her hair.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.