Healed Read Online Free PDF

passenger seat of my truck.
    “I know.” I reached over to place my hand on her leg. “We’ll be there soon.”
    We were on our way to have brunch with both of our families. Emily had had a hard time getting out of bed and we were running late, so I was doing my best to make up the time on the highway. As much as I hadn’t wanted to get up before nine in the morning on a Sunday, I was excited to see everyone together. This was the first official thing we were doing as future husband and wife.
    We were headed to a place about an hour from campus. Miraculously, even with our parents living in different directions, they’d managed to find a good place that was in the middle of all of us, meaning no one had to drive more than an hour.
    Eventually Emily turned on the radio, neither of us awake enough for a full-blown conversation yet. And since there was no time to stop on the way up for coffee, we were just going to have to wait until we got there. Thankfully, it was early on a Sunday morning and there wasn’t much traffic on the road, so we were able to make pretty good time, pulling into the parking lot the same time as her parents and younger sister.
    Looking around the parking lot, I saw my parents’ car already there, which really wasn’t a surprise. If she was on her own, my mom was always late everywhere, but my dad had this weird need to be early so they balanced each other out For as long as I could remember, my dad had made my mom leave the house fifteen minutes early so that they wouldn’t be late. Mom always grumbled about having to leave so early, but deep down I knew she appreciated it.
    Emily’s mom hopped out of the car the moment her dad put the vehicle in park, running toward our car. Emily jumped out of the car just as eager to see her mom. They threw their arms around each other and began to jump around and squeal in the middle of the parking lot. While this was going on, Mr. Halliday and Emily’s little sister, Jamie, got out of the car and walked calmly over to where I was standing next to my truck.
    Mr. Halliday reached out his hand to me. “Congratulations, son. Welcome to the family.”
    I took his hand. “Thank you so much, Mr. Halliday.”
    “Please call me Ben, or Dad. We’ll have none of this Mr. Halliday business. You’re family now.”
    “Thanks, Ben.”
    I turned to Emily’s younger sister. Although she had Emily’s chocolate brown hair and facial features, instead of the ice blue of Emily’s eyes, Jamie’s were the lightest green I’d ever seen. “Hey, Jamie, how’s it going? Are you enjoying the last bit of your senior year?”
    “It’s good, Andrew. I’m absolutely loving it.” She took a step closer to me and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so thrilled for you guys. Em’s never been happier.”
    Hugging her back, I smiled. “Well that’s good to know. Hopefully I can make her happy for the next fifty years.”
    Ben started to laugh and clasped me on the shoulder. “Son, you have no idea how to do that, but between your dad and I, we can get you settled. Trust me—these are lessons we had to learn the hard way. Don’t worry, we won’t do that to you.”
    There was no way my confusion wasn’t clear across my face.
    “Dad, stop, you’re scaring Andrew.”
    Ben started laughing and squeezed my shoulder again. “Come on, let’s go find your parents.”
    “They’re probably already inside. Mom’s always late so Dad makes her leave at least fifteen minutes early, if not more.”
    He laughed again. “You might want to try that. I think this is a first for Emily. She’s never on time.”
    “Don’t I know it.” I laughed, shaking my head. “We barely made it on time this morning.”
    “That wasn’t my fault,” Emily’s voice floated up from behind me.
    “Oh really?”
    “Nope,” she said, with a smile. Ben shook his head at her, still laughing.
    “All right, baby, whatever you say.”
    She smiled and slipped her hand down my arm, linking our