All Chapters of Rewrite Our Story: Best Friend's Brother Second Chance : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

8MARE - PRESENTI STARE at my reflection in the mirror, trying not to grimace at the absence of color on my face. The bags under my eyes are dark and pronounced from staying up until the early morning hours. I’d spent all night obsessing over the eulogy I’d written for Linda. Pippa had approved my first version of it, but it hadn’t felt perfect. So I’d stayed up all night making sure I made it as flawless as I possibly could.Her visitation was brutal. Everyone wanted to stop and talk. Some people even used the time to tell me they enjoyed my book and they’re anxiously awaiting the next one, which was wildly inappropriate. My father made sure to tell them so. He and his wife had three delayed flights, but they showed up to the visitation just in time. I’d been comforted by his presence next to me. We’d grown closer in the years since he moved away from Sutten. I think he needed to heal a bit more from Momma to be able to be a father again. I’ll never get back the time he was absent d

CADE - AGE TWENTY-ONE“I THOUGHT you were going out tonight?” My mom’s voice breaks me from my wallowing. I shove my spoon into my bowl of cereal, taking an angry bite as my mom steps into view.I chew, swallowing the sugary cereal before answering her. “I’d planned on it,” I clip.She nods slowly, giving me a look of concern that can only come from a mother. “What changed?”I shrug, looking back down at my bowl until she can read my frustration all over my face. “Just didn’t feel like it, I guess.”Cups clink against each other as she probably searches the dishwasher for her favorite mug. “It’s not often that you’re home on the weekends,” she notes. “Actually, none of you are here. Now that the girls are in their senior year and having the time of their lives, I feel like everyone has vanished.”I grunt. Not wanting to talk about the girls. More specifically—Marigold.I’m all too aware of her plans. She seems to have them all the time now. Every boy in this town has been wanting to o

CADE - PRESENTSLEEP DOESN’T FIND ME. It feels like I haven’t really slept since Mom died. Every time I shut my eyes, I imagine what she looked like. I have so many amazing memories to remember my mother, and the only one that seems to stick is the tragic last one I have of her in her bed.It doesn’t seem fair to her to remember her that way. I try to remind myself of that each time I close my eyes, but it doesn’t seem to work. Trying to remember every happy memory of her only results in me reliving the memory of the worst one—the one of me screaming and pleading for her to wake up despite not feeling a pulse or any warmth coming from her body.I angrily toss a pillow off the bed. As if blaming the pillow for my lack of sleep will solve things. Scrubbing my hands down my face, I groan.After I realized trying to think of good times with mom won’t help anything, I tried not thinking about her at all. But then thoughts of my mom drifted to Mare, and the images of her didn't help me fall

MARE - AGE NINETEEN“I THINK this might be the best idea I’ve ever had,” Pippa muses, squeezing icing onto a cupcake.I dip my finger into a bowl of orange frosting. “It might go down as one of my favorite birthdays,” I agree before popping my finger in my mouth and licking the icing off.Pippa looks up and glares at me. “Get away from the icing! If you eat too much of it I won’t have enough to finish icing your cupcakes.”I raise my eyebrows at her, my eyes roaming over the various different bowls of icing lining the island. “Something tells me you have enough, Pip.”The door is pushed open, Cade bounding through. He wears a Jennings Ranch T-shirt that fits him way too well. I swear each summer he gets more and more toned, only fueling the intense crush I’ve had on him for years.“Enough of what?” he asks, coming to a stop next to me.I point to the countless bowls of icing. “Pippa got mad at me for taste testing the icing. She’s worried she doesn’t have enough.”He laughs, fixing th

MARE - AGE NINETEENA SLIGHT RUSTLING sound outside the tent pulled me from my sleep. I look to see if maybe it was just Pippa coming to bed for the night. I find her fast asleep on the other side of the tent, her forearm covering her eyes.I pull the blanket up to my chin. I’d gone to bed early, too upset with Cade to enjoy what was supposed to be my birthday celebration. After he’d ruined the moment between Brendan and me, he’d gone right back to not talking to me.He stopped ignoring me at least. He didn’t grace me with another word, but he did glare at me the entire night. Even when his on and off again girlfriend, Rhiannon, tried to get his attention, he’d barely looked at her. He’d barely looked at anything but me or the labels he kept tearing off his beer bottles. The only time he pretended that I existed was when I tried to spend alone time with Brendan. If I even looked in Brendan’s direction, Cade would find a way to stop it like a damn guard dog.I let him scowl and throw a