Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Tobias’ quiet, angry words were enough for me to breathe a sigh of relief.
“So yes, you’re fucked up. But I’m just as fucked up, Tobias,” I told him. “It’s taken me a very long time to get to where I’m at right now, and it’s not looking like I’ll be fixed anytime soon, if ever.” I hesitated to say the next part. “If you stay with me, there’s bound to come a time when I will completely lose it, and you can’t hold it against me, okay?”
That’s when his arms wrapped securely around my shoulders, and my head pillowed on his defined chest.
“I replay shit in my head,” he muttered.
I wondered where he was going with this.
“I see my sister get raped by my best friend over and over in my nightmares.”
I moaned.
“God, Tobias,” I breathed. “You shouldn’t feel guilty for that.”
He laughed humorlessly.
“I shouldn’t?” He questioned. “I invited him over to our house constantly. It was my fault that he was even there in the first place. I felt bad for Jay the first time I met him.”
“Why?”
“Because Jay was sitting by himself at lunch.”
“Okay…”
“And everyone kept throwing fucking food at him when he wasn’t looking…and even when he was.” He paused. “I felt sorry for him, and I invited him over to my house to play some soccer and watch a movie the next weekend.”
I smoothed my hand over his chest.
“Inviting a loner to your house doesn’t make you a bad person, Tobias. It makes you compassionate. It’s not like he had ‘I’m a rapist’ tattooed on his forehead to warn you of the kind of person that he was.”
He grunted something I couldn’t hear, but replied with, “Just because that’s true, doesn’t make my heart hurt any less.”
“He took advantage of your kindness,” I told him bluntly. “If he were still alive, I’d kill him myself for making you hurt.”
He started to chuckle.
“As much as it makes me happy that you’re willing to do that for me, Jay is long dead, and even his parents don’t bother me all that much anymore.”
“What?”
The fury lacing my tone was barely contained, but I didn’t think that Tobias realized the danger as he began to speak.
“Jay’s parents still hate me, to this day, for killing their son.”
“Do they know what their son did?” I asked carefully.
“Yes,” he answered. “When it all went down, they learned the whole truth of what he was doing. Even after they found out all that he did, they still tried to take me to court and sue me for emotional damage or some shit.”
I was utterly aghast that someone would even think that that was okay to do.
“They got the part where you walked in on their son raping your little sister…right?”
He nodded.
“It gets better. After that night, the police thoroughly investigated him to corroborate my allegations.” He dropped his chin on top of my head. “Jay was seventeen. Not old enough to buy a shotgun, let alone own a shotgun. When they went to his house, they found over a half dozen guns, a shit load of ammo, and stuff on his computer about school shootings.”
I closed my eyes as horror washed over me. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I don’t really want to go watch that movie anymore.”
I didn’t really feel like it either.
“How about sitting our asses right here and ordering room service?” I replied hopefully.
He hummed. “I saw chocolate cake on the menu.”
I smiled and then pulled away from him. “Chocolate cake it is…do you want milk?”
“Am I a man?”
I rolled my eyes at his non-answer, then went to the cabin’s phone and placed an order for two slices of chocolate cake, two glasses of milk, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Other than the grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich, everything came out perfectly, and we spent the next few hours in each other’s arms.
It was blissfully perfect.
***
Three hours later, though, we found ourselves bored, with nothing to do and time on our hands.
“You want to walk around the boat?” he asked hopefully.
I could clearly see his desire to walk around and explore, so I gave him what he wanted without too much of a fight.
“I heard from the lady in the cabin next to ours that level six is the one you’d want use if you’re looking to walk all the way around the ship without hitting a dead end,” I supplied helpfully.
So off we went on our little adventure, heading down the long hallway away from our room toward the elevator.
“This is where you went this morning when you got lost?” he teased.
I glared at him.
He’d changed and showered and was now in a pair of black sleep pants and a tight black t-shirt.
His thick hair swept over his captivating eyes, and every time I looked at him I wanted to crawl into his arms and never leave.