Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

filtered lower and lower, and somewhere voices echoed, laughing and yelling. The scent of pine trees was thick in the air, a smell so pungent it was almost visible. It was the scent of a northern Michigan summer, to me.  
    I didn’t know how long we sat there drawing each other, and I didn’t care. I had a sense of complete peace, soul-deep contentment. Our knees were touching, just our kneecaps brushing, and that was enough to make me feel euphoria. Then Ever shifted, and my right knee touched her left shin, pressing close and making my heart skip more beats than could possibly be healthy.
    Finally, I knew the drawing was done. I examined it critically, adjusted a few lines and angles, and then nodded. I was pleased. I’d captured her face with as much realism as I possessed, her hair hanging in loose waves around one shoulder, head tilted, eyes downcast. The farther down her torso the drawing went, the more blurred and abstracted it got, so that her feet and knees were charcoal smudges on the paper.  
    I stood up, leaving the pad on the pine-needle-carpeted ground, and paced, working the blood back into my legs and numb backside. When I returned to my seat in front of Ever, she was holding my sketchbook and staring at it, an oddly emotional expression on her face.  
    “Is this how you see me?” she asked, not looking up at me.
    “I—sort of? I mean, it’s just a drawing. I was trying to mimic the way you did that landscape, you know?” I reached for my book, but she held on. “Are you…I mean, you’re not mad or anything, are you?”
    She shook her head and laughed. “No! Not at all. I was just expecting it to be a profile or something, you know? And this is totally not that. I don’t know, Caden. You make me look—I don’t know…prettier than I am.”
    “Not—um…I kind of think it doesn’t do you justice. It’s not good enough. You’re…you’re prettier than that.”
    “You think I’m pretty?”  
    I was beet red, I could feel it. Once again I wished I could say something debonair like James Bond would say in the old Sean Connery movies Dad watched every weekend. “Yeah.”  
    Nice. Might as well have grunted like a Neanderthal.
    Ever blushed and ducked her head, smoothing her hair over her shoulder with one hand. “Thanks.” She glanced up at me, and our eyes met, locked. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t. Her eyes were mesmerizing, green and almost luminous. “I almost don’t want to show you my stupid drawing.”
    I reached for the drawing, but Ever didn’t let go of it. Our fingers touched, and I swore actual physical sparks shot up from where our skin touched. Neither of us pulled away.  
    After a forever that could have fit into the space of a single breath, she let me take the sheet of paper, and touch became loss.
    It was an amazing portrait of me, ultra-realistic. I was sitting cross-legged with my pad of paper, pencil held in my fingers, head down. You could just barely see the upper portion of my face, the frown of concentration.
    “It’s incredible, Ever,” I said. “Really amazing.” I was torn between admiration and jealousy. She was really good.
    “Thanks.”
    She held my drawing, and I held hers. A cicada sang somewhere, the loud buzzing sound of summer.  
    “I have an evening composition class,” I said. “I should probably go.”  
    “Yeah. I should, too.” She stood up, brushing off her backside, an action I tried not to watch, then handed me back my sketchpad. “I had a good time today. Maybe we could do this again. Another day.”
    I tore my drawing of her free and gave it to her. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
    “Cool.”
    “Cool.”  
    She gave an odd, half-circle wave, then looked at her hand as if to question why it had done such an awkward thing. Then, before I could say anything, she gathered her things and left.  
    I watched her go, wondering what this thing was between us. Friendship? Something else? We’d only hung out twice, but it