Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Growing up was hard without him. High school was hard without him. After I graduated, I worked with my dad, and every single day was hard. When you own a business, you don’t work nine to five. You work twenty-four hours a day. And you’re always worried about it. You live it constantly, without breaks.
“It’ll be fun.”
Gah, the magic word. Fun. My life hasn’t had a lot of that in it lately. Or for, like, the last decade. I can barely suppress a shiver.
“I’d have to—”
“Everything’s taken care of,” he reassures me.
“I was going to say have a shower, change, and get myself together.” I’ve been quite…frazzled while our dads have been here. Looking good wasn’t high on the list of priorities. Putting myself between murderous glares, starey staredowns, and simmering tempers hot enough to roast a person clean out of their skin in a matter of seconds has been my regular sunup to sundown for the past forty-eight hours, and I’m exhausted.
“You’re perfect just the way you are.”
“I’m not going out like this.” I pull on my T-shirt. It’s vintage, and I love it, but it does have a stain near the bottom at the back, and I know for a fact that I tore a giant hole right above the knee of my leggings today when I caught them on the edge of the patio table outside.
“We’re not going out.”
“The surprise is in here?” I ask flatly. “Or is this some kind of a joke? Because my capacity for fucked up humor is seriously limited at the moment.”
If there’s one thing I can’t hold up against, it’s compassion, and Apollo’s face gets all soft and understanding. “Our dads are going to be fine. I’ve already talked to them. They both agreed we need a break, and they need time to talk.”
“What? They said that?” I gasp.
“That we need a break?”
“No, that they’d talk.” I can feel my insides crumbling, but it’s a crush of utter joy. Maybe this is the surprise.
“They did say that. They both agreed on me giving you this surprise. They know you’ll love it.”
“They know what it is?”
“They do. It’s not a secret. Just a surprise for you, so you can’t know what it is. But they agreed. That’s the important thing. I think it’s going to be okay. This is the first real glimmer of hope I’ve seen yet.”
I don’t want to feel hopeful. I want to keep holding on to my guardedness because it’s the only thing that keeps my heart from getting totally crushed. A little bit crushed is one thing. Obliterated is another. Mine has been obliterated too many times for me to count, and it’s getting harder and harder to put it back together.
“Will you let me show you what it is?”
This is the Apollo I can’t deal with. The sweet, gentle, happy, caring man. But still. I’m not going to just give in. He doesn’t get to be forgiven just like that and farge on his surprises and his trying to win me over with them. I’m glad our dads finally agreed on at least one thing, but it doesn’t mean I have to cave. It doesn’t mean I have to like this.
When I got really upset, my dad sometimes used to tell me to put things into perspective.
So, to put things in perspective, I’m in the world’s most amazing house. Our parents are under the same roof, and they haven’t ripped each other to shreds yet, verbally or in any other way. No one has made any threats about farting on the other in one’s sleep. I’m kidding. I don’t know why I just thought that. I just remember how, when I was a kid, everyone was saying that and making threats about pink eye. At the time, I thought it was the worst thing I’d ever heard. You don’t want to mess with pink eye. It’s nasty, scary, and appalling. What could be worse than waking up with a gummy eye and having the whole world know that someone night-farted in your general direction?
Anyway, just because the house is my dream brought to life, everything is a work of art, I’m out in the woods in the middle of nowhere, my dad’s company is going to be okay, and I’ve had a bit of a vacation for the first time in a very long time, there are also some serious drawbacks.
I’m married to a man I used to know and love like a brother, and he’s now pretty much a stranger. Plus, there’s the whole bad feelings that are still very much alive and real for me. I’m not a grudge holder, but I don’t have to forgive the shittiness, the leaving, and the forgetting where he came from, either. I don’t have to forgive the fact that he might have been trying to protect me, but this marriage still wasn’t a choice for me. I’m here because it was the lesser of two evils. Well, okay, so I like his not-cat too. I guess that’s another positive.