Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
That was Alice.
Hopeful, yet fragile.
I was going to be sad to leave her behind.
“You’re leaving me, huh?” Alice asked, snapping me out of my memories, making me look up to find her standing in my doorway.
Small.
God, she was so tiny.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen an adult woman so childlike before. Short, so slight she looked like a strong wind could snap her bones, with a short crop of dark hair and these big, doll-like blue eyes.
She was almost hauntingly pretty. Like a ghost in a dream. You could see her and then immediately question if she was real or some ethereal being.
“The head-shrinkers don’t think I’m a danger to myself anymore,” I told her, nodding. That was her term for the psychiatrists.
“They always come to that conclusion for me too,” she said, dropping down on the bed across from the one I was sitting off the side of. “So, are you a danger to yourself? I won’t tell them.”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “I just want to get back to my life. I can’t even imagine how much work I’m going to have to catch up on.”
“Hey, do you think it’s possible that I could, you know, shoot you an email or follow you on social media or something? You know, when they deem me sane enough to leave again, that is. It’s cool if it’s a no. I get that sometimes you don’t want to have loony-bin friends outside of the loony-bin.”
“I would love to keep in touch, actually,” I told her. “But since we don’t have any pens here, you are just going to need to remember my number.”
“I still remember my sixth-grade locker combination,” Alice said, smiling. “Shoot,” she invited, listening as I rattled it off, then repeating it back to me.
“Let me know when you’re out, okay?” I asked, reaching out to give her wrist a squeeze. “You really made this stay tolerable for me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
“Hey, that’s the job of the old timers, right?” she asked, following me out to the desk. “Now, don’t come back, y’hear?” she said, shooting me a soft, sort of sad smile as I headed back out toward my old life.
While she stayed there.
Without her newfound friend.
My heart ached for her, but I figured I would hear from her one day. And, like she kept telling me, she was a veteran of state-run psych wards. She would be okay.
So I needed to get my head back on my own life.
I didn’t know what was going to happen once I was released, especially if my smartwatch wasn’t charged to call anyone.
You could say I was floored to find a car parked and waiting for me.
“Miss Coulter?” the driver asked. If he had any thoughts about the place I was being released from, he kept them to himself.
“Ah, yes,” I said, brows pinching, wondering why there was a stranger there instead of Cam, or Mitchell, my usual driver.
“Cam arranged for me to pick you up,” he said, the words sounding rehearsed, which only assured me that Cam had, indeed, set this up. Because he was absolutely the sort to hammer a phrase into someone’s head.
“Oh, okay,” I said, following him toward the car. “Do you happen to have a char—“ I started as he opened the door.
I didn’t get to finish the word because he was pulling a charging cord out of his front pocket.
“Cam?” I asked.
I got a nod to that. “Cam. He was… exacting,” the driver said with a wicked little smile that said that what Cam actually was, was a pain in the ass. Which was exactly what he needed to be at times to work for me.
“That sounds like him,” I said, blinking at the sudden stinging in my eyes. I may not have a lot of close people in my life, and sure, I had to pay Cam, but he was one of the good ones. I was lucky to have him.
As soon as I settled in the back of the car, I realized just how lucky.
Because not only had he arranged for me to have a charger for my watch, but there was a whole bag in the back full of little supplies he knew I’d appreciate.
Hand sanitizing wipes, which I promptly used all over my hands, neck, and even my face to hold me over until I could have a proper full body scrub in my own shower. There was a bottle of my favorite iced tea, some little packs of cookies and chips, a nail file and clipper, a hairbrush and jaw clip, and a tin of strong mints.
Over the hour-long ride back to the city, I used every single thing in that basket, reminding me again how invaluable Cam was to my life, even if it did feel a bit strange that he hadn’t shown up to pick me up himself.