Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“I don’t think anyone in the history of history has ever ‘calmed down’ when they’re told to,” he explained patiently.
I was entranced with the way he was tucking his shirt in that at first I wasn’t aware that he was looking at me looking at him until he cleared his throat and said, “Are you even listening to me?”
“I listen when I hear something I want to listen to.” I shrugged.
He rolled his eyes, but the small stain on his cheeks was back, letting me know that my teasing was getting to him. That, or my heated gaze.
Whatever the reason, I kind of liked what I was doing to him.
I liked that he felt uncomfortable around me.
And more so, I liked that he knew what had happened to me, and had decided that it didn’t change me in his eyes.
A lot of times, when people first found out what had happened with O’Ryan and my so-called ‘ex,’ they started looking at me like I was a victim.
And I damn well wasn’t a fucking victim.
I was a badass.
“Why do you look like you’re about to go all Xena Warrior Princess on me all of a sudden?” he asked, bringing my attention to him once again.
I thought about that for a few long moments before I said, “I like that you know about me. I like that I don’t have to tell you. And I like that you don’t look at me like I’m some broken piece of glass that could shatter at any second after what was done to me. I’m not a victim. And I’m certainly not ‘broken.’”
He went still for a moment and stared at me, his gaze full of something I couldn’t quite decipher.
“Victims aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Victims happen due to circumstance. You have not allowed what happened to you define you. You’re still here. You survived. You fought to get back to your normal life. What you are not is a quitter. You are a victor, not a victim. You have fought hard to get back to yourself, and everyone can see that. Even the people that don’t know your story know that you’re a complete badass.”
The warming in my heart felt foreign.
I’d never felt it before.
Ever since I was young, I was an outcast.
My mom, I knew, didn’t like me.
My dad, although he was a fairly good guy, had never really been the type of person to just let me know that he loved me. That he cared. Or anything really.
He was just my dad.
A brash military guy that could deal with his kids… or not. He was so blasé when it came to us that sometimes I wondered if he’d even notice if we weren’t around anymore.
A really good example was the fact that my dad hadn’t really begged me to come back.
He’d told me that Mirabel was running his business into the ground, but he hadn’t apologized for choosing her over me. He’d just told me he needed me to come back.
Out of everyone in my life, it’d been Salem who’d really showed me the most love and affection. But Salem was a wanderer. She had a wanderer’s soul. She was the type of person that would come when she was needed, but she wouldn’t stay. She just hated being tied down. Hated even more being tied to a place where her stepmother lived that she hated.
When she needed money the worst, though, she’d come home. She’d work for a couple of months, bum with family so she didn’t have any bills other than food, and then she’d leave again, on to her next adventure.
What sped up her departure the most, however, was having a run-in with my mother.
That was the fastest way to get her to leave, having the money saved or not.
“You have this really weird look on your face,” Easton said, touching my chin.
I swallowed and once again focused on him.
“I was thinking about my mom, and how much she annoys me,” I admitted.
He dropped his hand, and I immediately missed the heat of it.
“Your mom, the one that told you to forgive your brother, and the ex, and ‘get over’ it?” he guessed.
My mother had done that.
In fact, she’d done a whole lot worse over our lifetime.
“My mother is the type of person that wants very little drama in her life,” I said. “At least, on the outside so it appears that she’s the perfect little trophy wife to her new husband. She wants scandal kept to a minimum, and O’Ryan paying for his crimes was something she didn’t think needed to be plastered all over the place.”
“Your mother is delusional,” he grumbled. “I know for a fact that she has her own share of sins that she airs out in public.”
“You mean the cheating?” I guessed, finding it amusing.