The Truth About Jack (Entangled Crush) Read Online Free PDF

at dawn, moved to a gated community in Tennessee. Apparently she’d been seeing a guy named Sean for months before she left, a realtor with stiff, gelled hair I’ve met only once. For the first twelve years of my life she was into art and yoga and meditation. Then, seemingly overnight, she transformed. Now she answers phones at Sean’s office. I’ve seen her four times in the last five years. Each time it felt more awkward, like having lunch not with my mother but with a character from a sitcom I used to watch when I was a kid.
    Human beings are incapable of lasting love. My parents’ disastrous marriage should have taught me that much. A natural optimist, I refused to get the message. Now, Cody and River’s betrayal proves it. If I ignore the evidence this time, that’s not optimism, it’s flat-out denial.
    I’m giving up on love, simple as that.
    I put my journal down for a moment and stare out to sea. A massive wave pounds the shore, then pulls back in a lacy tumult of foam. Something in the midst of the white backwash catches my eye: a flash of green. Whatever it is glints in the sunlight. Something glass?
    On impulse, I stand and run down to the water, wade into the ankle-high surf. The water’s freezing and the sand sucks at my bare feet. There it is, bobbing in the shallows—a green glass wine bottle with a cork in it. I roll my jeans up to my knees and dart forward, gasping as the cold water closes around my naked calves. My fingers grip the neck of the bottle just as a fresh wave starts to crest. It rears up like an icy blue beast gathering strength before an attack.
    For half a second I think of how sorry River and Cody will be when they hear I’ve drowned. I picture how guilty they’ll feel, knowing I died just an hour after getting River’s email. The sound of the wave hitting the beach makes my chest thrum with fear and excitement; it snaps me out of my stupid little death-wish moment. I grip the bottle tightly and run as fast as I can. The surf chases me, licking at the backs of my legs, but I’m fast, and even though the sand seems to liquefy beneath my feet, I still beat it. For just a second there, I feel something like happy.
    Walking back to my nest in the dunes, I study the bottle. I’d hoped it might have a message inside, but no dice. Working the cork free, I take a tentative sniff. It’s dry inside and smells only slightly of wine and salt. The cork looks relatively fresh. It gives me an idea.
    I settle once again beside my bag, pick up my journal, and tear out a page. Everything that sucks in my life seems to come from a glowing screen. River’s toxic email. Seeing acquaintances on Facebook having awesome college lives while I’m stuck in Luna Cove. Mom’s occasional generic group text wishing me a Merry Christmas or a Happy Valentine’s Day.
    Maybe it’s time to go low tech—pen and paper, glass and cork, no Wi-Fi required. I want to send a message in a bottle. I want to write something true and launch it into the universe, a plea to the gods, an offering.
    Who knows? Maybe someone will find it, and I won’t feel so alone.
    …
    Jack
    She’s sitting in the dunes way down on the other side of the beach. The sight of her white-blond hair and her yellow T-shirt peeking out of the pampas grass makes my breath catch in my throat. I’m not a mystic or anything. Fate has never struck me as an especially appealing concept. Most of the time I’d much rather think I’m in charge, even if I’m fooling myself. But when I see her there, some goofy romantic part of me believes this is meant to happen. That I was supposed to see her this morning in that café and just happen to choose this beach and find her here. Like, what are the odds? Okay, maybe the odds aren’t that extraordinary; it’s a beautiful day, a beach day, and we’re not exactly hundreds of miles from that café, but still. It’s weird, at the very least, and somehow that makes me happy.
    Aside from a couple of