Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“You had your pity party. Time to man up and deal with it.”
“Fuck off, Dare. I don’t need your big brother shit right now.”
“I don’t really give a shit what you think you need. I know from experience that you’re about to spiral, and then you’re going to spend the rest of your life regretting it. Trust me on this one.”
That might be the most Dare has ever divulged about himself in one sentence. I know something happened, and I’ve always gotten the feeling that it was a tragedy, but I’ve never asked him. Dare likes to talk even less than I do.
I stand up, brushing off the pieces of grass stuck to my bare stomach and follow Dare inside. The house is just like I remembered it. A cabin style home with vaulted ceilings sitting right on the lake. It’s still pretty bare. A couple of couches in front of a huge stone fireplace. A couple of rooms with beds upstairs—one of them mine—and not a lot else. Not even a TV, which has made for a very boring week. Dare’s been tattooing at the new shop he opened, and I’ve been doing a lot of drinking myself into oblivion and sleeping. Rinse, repeat.
“It’s been a week,” Dare says, handing me a cup of coffee, his not-so-subtle way of sobering me up. “You need to bury your dad, man.”
The mug is scorching, but I ignore the burn as I clench it so tight that I expect it to shatter in my hands. I’ve been in contact with the funeral home. John made most of the arrangements on his own. He’s to be buried right next to my mom. He was an organ donor, which is pretty goddamn ironic if you ask me, so the process takes a little longer than it would otherwise. And now, they’re just waiting on me. But I can’t go back. I won’t.
Briar. Just thinking her name feels like a fist around my heart. I left her in a fucking hospital bed. She was only there because of me in the first place.
“Asher, please don’t leave me.”
Her voice haunts me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I promised her I wouldn’t leave her, and even though it’s for her own good, I can’t stop picturing how it must have felt when she realized I wasn’t there, and again when it was clear that I wasn’t coming back. I told her this would happen. This, right here, is what I was trying to avoid. But, what I feel for Briar transcends logic, rules, and societal norms. She’s so deeply ingrained in me, that I’m not even me without her. My best side was her worst creation.
None of that matters, though. I’m not the one for her. I don’t belong in that town with those people. Briar is inherently good, while I’m rotten, and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch.
Chapter 16
Briar
Day Eight
My parents are coming. It took them an entire week to check the voicemail that the doctor left on my mom’s cell phone, informing them that their daughter was hospitalized. To their credit, they hopped on the next flight out, as soon as they heard. The utter despair I’ve been feeling for the past week shifts into anger, and my blood boils thinking about my dad’s part in all this. My father isn’t the softest man in the world, not by a long shot, but I didn’t think he was capable of something like this. Especially not when it hurts his own children. But, clearly, I was mistaken.
I stretch out my legs from the fetal position I’ve spent the majority of the past week in and yawn. I’ve done nothing but sleep and watch Tombstone from my bed. I can’t even use the media room anymore because it hurts too much. He managed to ruin my favorite place.
“Fucker,” I mutter under my breath.
I’ve called the funeral home, but they didn’t have any information on services planned for John. He wasn’t a bad man. He was a man who sometimes did bad things. A man who couldn’t deal with all the hurt inside him, so he pushed his son and everyone else away while he quite literally drank himself to death. My worst fear is Asher suffering the same fate. I thought I could be that person for him. I thought I could make him happy. Because even through all the dysfunction, the sneaking around, and the lies, he made me happy. He made me whole. I promised myself I wouldn’t let him complete me. I didn’t want to fall in love. Falling in like, and then losing him, was hard enough.
I hear the shrill, neurotic voice of my mother coming through the front door, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors. My father is silent, but I know he’s with her. I blow out a deep breath, rolling onto my back, bracing myself for them to come barging through my door. Swinging my legs over the side, I sit up on the edge of the bed.