Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,45

the way I was, though . . . he just wanted me to be better. For us both to be better. To have more followers and grow our businesses and focus on the things that really mattered, like what others thought of us!” Sadness. Sudden and hard and cold. Nibbling away at me as I spoke. I stopped walking and stared ahead of me.

“Nobody likes me anymore,” I whispered softly to myself, my heart breaking in my chest. “They all hate me.”

“Ruff! Ruff!”

“I don’t know if you liking me counts. You just like me cos I feed you and let you sleep inside.” I turned and looked at him as I walked back onto the main road and headed for the hotel. His one yellow eye looked full of compassion, his mouth was open, tongue hanging out as if he was . . . smiling?

I reached down and patted his head. “Thanks,” I said. “You like me, and you’re a good listener.” The thought brought the smallest smile to my face and made me feel just the faintest bit better and less alone. No one had ever just let me vent like this. Not my sister, definitely not Kyle. And it felt good to finally voice out loud everything that I was really feeling inside. Even if it was all very confusing, and I didn’t have a bloody app to un-confuse me either.

CHAPTER 21

After an entire afternoon spent in the hotel room with nothing to do again, other than popping to Jim’s store to buy some doggy treats, I was utterly bored. And because of this boredom, I once again found myself walking down the street. This time it was not towards spiritual enlightenment, but rather towards movie night.

I walked down the street to the barn at the end of the road, Cujo next to me on the leash. He was surprisingly good, he never pulled and seemed to walk in perfect unison with me. If someone was looking at the two of us, they would think we’d been walking like this for years. Perfectly in tune with each other’s movements.

The walk through the town was a pleasant one and the air was much cooler now. It was bearable being outside in the evening like this. And, at this time of day, the town really looked like it was something out of a picture book. It almost didn’t look real, and certainly not of this time; it looked older and more historic in the warm lights shining from the streetlamps and out of people’s windows, a place frozen in time. Like it was trapped in a snow globe, this perfect little place that was somehow separate from the rest of the world outside. If I could, I would have taken a photo of it and posted it on Instagram with some well-thought-out hashtags, but obviously . . . not! This thought saddened me. Sharing what I saw with others was an important part of my life. And now, it was gone. And worse than that, there was probably no one left to share it with anyway.

I found the barn at the end of the street, and automatically pulled my phone out of my bag to check how many steps I’d taken. I was still keeping my phone on me, even though I couldn’t use it. Just knowing it was there made me feel better in some way.

The barn was a big structure with a high roof and no sides. It was full of people sitting on colorful blankets draped over hay bales. A screen had been made on one side by tying a sheet between two poles. Some people were sitting, others were milling about talking, and some were standing in queues ordering hot dogs, beers and milkshakes. I walked over to the milkshake stand and looked at it for a moment. No way to check how many calories were in it. But I was starving and the big, bright pink things seemed to be calling to me. I looked down at Cujo, almost asking for his permission, like I might have done with Kyle. He of course would have shaken his head and told me to “keep my eye on the prize”; keep my goal firmly in sight and don’t let temptations pull me away from my true purpose. Smash Through™ temptation and step into my Massive, Explosive Purpose™.

But Kyle wasn’t here. He was with @Paige_Dreams_ and they were probably both sitting on the sofa right now, the one