Page 17 of Eleanor & Grey

I looked up to see a sassy Molly standing in her doorway with her hands on her hips. Her curly red hair hung to her shoulders, and she was tapping her foot repeatedly.

“What? No. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Then why did your face turn red?”

“My face isn’t red.”

“Uh-huh. You look like an apple.”

“Some apples are green,” I argued, walking over to her.

“But you’re the red apple, because of your boyfriend,” she mocked. Suddenly she started dancing around on the front porch and singing loudly. “Ellie has a boyfriend! Ellie has a boyfriend!”

“Molly, knock it off!” I whisper-shouted, looking over my shoulder and seeing Greyson staring at us. My God, I was horrified.

“Why don’t you go kiss him? Go kiss your boyfriend!” She kept pushing the boyfriend agenda, making me groan as I rubbed my hands against my face.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I argued once more.

“If he’s not your boyfriend, who is he?” she asked, her hands still on her hips in that sassy pose.

“He’s Grey.” I sighed, tossing my hands up before walking over to her and lifting her nosey self into my arms. “He’s just Grey.”

“He doesn’t look gray,” Molly remarked. “He looks tan.”

I chuckled. “No, he’s not gray, but he’s Grey. Like…his name is Grey.”

“People’s names can be colors?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“Can I be pink?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, Pink.”

“And you’re Red! Like your face right now.”

Well, that felt fitting.

4

Eleanor

You know those first few minutes after you finished an amazing book?

Those moments when you aren’t quite sure what to do with yourself?

You simply sit there, staring at the last words, unsure how to move on with your life.

How can it be over?

How can those characters just fade to black?

For you, the characters are still imprinted on your soul. Their actions, their dialogue still alive and strong in your mind. Your tears haven’t even dried, and you crave another fix.

I loved that feeling—the bittersweet love story between a person and a novel coming to an end.

That’s what happened to me after I finished Harry Potter.

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