Fortunate Son (The Forever Marked #1) - Jay Crownover Page 0,2
a lot of experience with.
I was the kind of guy who typically got what I wanted and excelled at whatever I put my mind to. I graduated at the top of my class in high school, got into my first choice of college, and was in the starting line-up of my first college football game. My parents had a wall full of trophies and accolades I’d earned over the years. They were always proud of what I’d accomplished, even though they had never pushed me to be perfect. All they wanted was for me to be happy, so they supported me regardless of how hard I pushed myself.
I was popular and well-liked among my peers. As one of the oldest members of my tight-knit inner circle of relatives and longtime family friends, I was often the voice of reason and the most responsible member of the group, even though we were all similar in age and life experience. I never had a problem getting close to members of the opposite sex, but there was only one I wanted to keep and call mine.
But she no longer wanted me, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself now.
It was my first time being rejected, and I could admit I wasn’t handling it well… at all.
I glanced down at my phone, which had been ringing and pinging with messages nonstop for the last several hours. I wanted to turn the damn thing off, but there was a part of me that refused to believe I’d been dumped, so I waited for each call to show my ex’s info. She never popped up on the screen, but my mom called close to twenty times. My dad called no less than ten. And my best friend, who also happened to be my cousin, was sending a text every fifteen minutes like clockwork.
I avoided them all, but eventually, the one and only person I couldn’t ignore even if I wanted to called, and I finally caved and answered the phone.
“Ry Archer, where in the hell are you? Mom and Dad are worried sick about you.” My little sister’s voice was shaky and sounded like she’d been crying. She was normally a pretty tough cookie but could be overly dramatic and emotional. Part of that was because she was a teenage girl. But a huge chunk of it was that she took after our father in pretty much every single way except in her appearance. She looked just like our mother, with her white-blond hair and pretty green eyes.
However, she was reckless and rebellious just like our old man. She was as outspoken and opinionated as he was. She was as bold and as colorful as he was. She was fearless in everything the same way he was. And she felt everything in the same extreme way he did. Both of us grew up knowing without a doubt how much we were loved and cherished by our parents, but especially by our dad. The opposite was also true. Whenever we disappointed him or did something he didn’t approve of, we felt his displeasure down to our bones. It was a lot to take in and balance out, but luckily our quiet and mostly even-keeled mother kept our household and our father in check. I wished I took after her the way Daire took after Dad, but I was kind of the odd man out in our family.
I’d heard more than once from my grandparents and my uncle that my personality and behavior were almost a mirror image of my dad’s twin brother, who was no longer with us. It was a sore spot with my dad whenever someone made the comparison, but he didn’t deny that there were many times that I reminded him of his twin brother. No matter how much time had gone by since he lost his twin, my dad still very much missed his other half and felt the loss of not having him in his life. Sometimes my mom told me stories about the two of them when they were growing up, and I could sense the similarities in myself and my uncle. For so many reasons, it sucked he died so young, only one of which was I had no one to really to really relate to in my family. I was kind of the darkest sheep in a flock that was already mostly shades of black and gray.
I sighed and squeezed the steering wheel between my hands.