Ever: The Ever Trilogy, Book One (Volume 1) Read Online Free PDF

up on my feelings once again and tried to prod me for more. “What else is it, Ever? I know you can’t be this quiet over a weird coincidence about flowers.”
    She was right, of course. There was so much more on my mind.
    “Well, you know, I’m feeling kind of … .” I trailed off then, not quite sure what to say. Luckily, knowing me as well as she did, Jessie jumped right in.
    “Oh, Ever. Really? Please don’t tell me you’re feeling all weird because of Frankie.”
    “Well—”
    “No. This has got to stop. Seriously, Ev, it’s not healthy! I mean, we are seventeen years old. We are supposed to be dating and having fun. Susan says—in one of the only bits of advice I’ll even bother with—that we should be dating multiple guys at a time! Multiple. ” She sounded out each syllable, and I worried she’d stop to spell the word for me. Then she winked and continued, “We’re young. We’re hot. And we’re single. You shouldn’t be waiting around for Frankie, Ev. It’s just … it’s just a waste.”
    She lowered her voice at the end, trying to soften the blow of her words, but it didn’t matter. I was well aware that my feelings for Frankie were a waste of time—I wasn’t a total idiot—but that didn’t make them go away, and it didn’t make them any less a real part of me. Knowing how impossible a relationship with Frankie would be didn’t make me desire one any less.
    “Never mind, Jess. I’ll figure it out.”
    I was disappointed by the response she’d given me regarding the flowers, and she obviously didn’t have much along the lines of advice about Frankie that I hadn’t already heard before. I mean, I get why she tried to get me to move on. It was just easier said than done.
    I shrugged it off and tried to enjoy the day at the beach.

I woke up a few times in the night, not because of nightmares—I had none—but because my inner alarm clock decided I should wake up and check for Frankie at 12:30 a.m., 2:30 a.m., and once again at 5:30 a.m., as if his appearance in my bedroom would now be a regular occurrence. Was I hoping for that? Yes. Like the ones before it, the 5:30 a.m. room search left me incredibly disappointed, but this time unable to fall back asleep.
    After yesterday’s trip to the beach, followed by no trace of Frankie last night, followed then by a full night of no ghostly visitors, I was beginning to convince myself that Frankie’s visit to my room in the wee hours of Friday night had simply been a part of the dream world that had so completely consumed me—a figment of my overactive imagination. Really, it made a lot more sense that my guilt over my interest in the neighbor created a dream version of Frankie—one that I had no qualms about being nearly naked in front of.
    Even more important than that was the very existence of a guilty conscience in the first place. Why I had any guilt was anyone’s guess, but I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that somehow having even the slightest interest in Toby was a betrayal of Frankie.
    Annoyed and exhausted, I headed into the kitchen to start the coffee because my brain wouldn’t fully function without it.
    “Mornin’, Doll.”
    “Shit! Frankie!” My traitorous cheeks flamed bright red in his presence, the memory of Friday night rushing into my mind. I turned to face him sitting on the counter. With one leg folded underneath him, and the other one dangling, he twirled a ghostly unlit cigarette in his fingers like a baton, a wry smile pulling up at his mouth.
    My heart stopped for a second as my breath caught in my chest. I hadn’t a clue what to say to him. As he stared at me, I couldn’t help but remember the intense way he’d looked at me in my room the other night. He was looking at me that way again. I hadn’t imagined it. The fact that nothing came from that moment between us was irrelevant. My heart raced, and I wondered if either one of us would look at one another the same way again.
    After being able to