The Boy I Love Read Online Free

our family . It sounds so weird and awful. It is so weird and awful. Just thinking it gives me this sharp and terrible pain in my stomach, and I have to push it out of my head very quickly.
    Holly and James tried to move past this discovery—I mean, it was hardly Holly’s fault—but they just couldn’t. For one thing, the wedding had been planned at our farm (we had never been happy calling it a plantation, and obviously, now this was even more the case). James just got more and more weirded out, and then the question came up as to the possibility of what if they were somehow related , and everybody just became more guilty and more confused, and finally they called the whole thing quits. It was the saddest thing in the world and also—in my opinion—the most unfair. It wasn’t Holly’s fault her ancestors owned slaves.She was the nicest, kindest person I’d ever known in my whole life. All she ever did was help out people of every stripe and color and situation. If she’d been around during slave days, you can bet she would have been working full-time for the Underground Railroad, escorting everyone north. She was the last person who should have to pay for someone else’s crimes.
    Thinking about this, I felt a wave of sadness. I was getting my party, but Holly didn’t get hers. I headed upstairs to change into my barn clothes, then grabbed a couple of carrots from the refrigerator. And even though I knew my mother had an afternoon of forking straw planned for me, and even though I felt plenty bad for Holly and James, I couldn’t help but walk with a little bounce in my step. Because I knew that all my mother and father wanted to do these days was cheer Holly up. If it cheered her up to know I was headed to a party at the beach, then you can bet on Saturday night that’s exactly where I’d be going.
    *   *   *
    On Friday afternoon I couldn’t wait to see Ry, my guitar teacher. He had been at Tanglewood in Massachusetts all summer, teaching at a music camp. I came downstairs carrying my guitar case, wearing a cutoff denim skirt and a tank top, my hair loose. When I got to the foot of the stairs, Dad told me to march right back up and put on something decent.
    â€œAnd don’t even think about wearing something like thatto your party tomorrow,” he ordered. I swallowed my anger but closed the door to my room gently. I wanted to slam it, hard, but knew that anything seeming rebellious could end up in exactly what he wanted, which was an excuse to go back on his promise to let me go to the party on Saturday. I came back down in baggy khaki shorts, a white sleeveless oxford, and my hair in a ponytail.
    â€œHappy now?” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic.
    â€œEcstatic,” Dad said. He opened the front door for me. “You look prettier like that anyway,” he said, and I rolled my eyes. This was the man who had chosen my mother, after all, who owned no shoes except flip-flops, sneakers, and riding boots. Dad’s favorite outfits for males and females alike consisted of flannel shirts and beat-up Levi’s.
    Maybe to make up for annoying me, Dad let me drive to the music store. He hated driving on real streets with me more than anything in the world, so there was a lot of yelling my name and covering his eyes, plus he had this imaginary brake of his own that he kept stomping on.
    At the music store I hauled my guitar out of the backseat, and Dad looked mighty relieved as he jumped over into the driver’s seat. I waited for him to pull away before I took my hair down and tied my shirt so that just a tiny bit of midriff showed.
    â€œHey there, Wren,” Ry said. I smiled at him. It’s true I’d had a little crush on Tim Greenlaw when I was just a child.But Ry made me feel like a girl from a romance novel. Allie didn’t think he was handsome at all, but that didn’t bother me. He could play all kinds