feeling, the want, the need swirling and battling and churning
inside her until she felt ready to burst with it.
The golden sound of Cassia’s laughter from the backyard
drifted up through the closed window and Adalynn ground her
teeth. She wasn’t annoyed with Cassia. Cassia was good. She
was bright. She was everything incredible and unexpected, a
force of her very own. She wasn’t just what was on the
surface. She wasn’t what people saw. Yes, she was beautiful,
beyond belief, but it didn’t stop there. She radiated with
warmth. She was like the sun that Adalynn was always
comparing her to, but nowhere near as predictable. She didn’t
rise and set at hours prescribed by the season. She’d dared to
escape a life where she could have had everything, and she’d
done it all on her own because she was honest to the core of
her being. She was made of something stronger than anyone
else could see just by looking at her.
Adalynn snapped her head up and walked over to the
window. She looked down on the ancient picnic table and the
few scattered lawn chairs that were strewn about the backyard
for the guys to use on their breaks. She realized, that since
everyone was sitting around and each chair was filled and the
picnic table full, that it was lunchtime already. She’d been
working ceaselessly at nothing for the past five hours already.
Getting absolutely nowhere because she couldn’t focus and
do what needed to be done. She didn’t know how to do what
she needed to do.
It was basically a metaphor for her entire life, and she felt
exhausted.
And then, even as the bitter feelings, the feelings of
inadequacy and cowardice pulverized her insides, twisting