Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“It’s Bradley in your grave?” Leni whispers. “I was visiting Bradley all these months?”
His head bobs slowly. “Yeah. I was a John Doe at the hospital. Somebody picked me up after I stumbled through the woods and finally found the road. I was so out of it, and all bandaged up after they treated me at the hospital, and I didn’t have my ID on me. I heard reports on the news from my bed, and I knew I couldn’t tell anybody who I really was.”
“And what you really did,” Leni whispers with an edge to her voice, like she’s spitting the words out. “Because they would know from the burns that you were there when it happened. But you could’ve pretended it was an accident. You could’ve told them you were dazed and didn’t know what you were doing. Right?” She looks at me for backup, her eyes wild and wide.
“Yeah, that’s true,” I agree. “There were so many things you could’ve done that wouldn’t involve, you know, basically gaslighting me for seven months into thinking my brother was dead when he’s really alive. And do you know what that did to her, too?” I demand, jerking a thumb toward Leni because it’s not easy for me to admit what it did to me. It’s easier to bring her into it and make it more about her. Less embarrassing, too. “And Mom! I guess you saw the message about her being here, being awake now, right? You know about all of that.”
“I do, and I went to see her one night when she was asleep. Thank you for keeping me updated.”
He’s being sincere, and I get where he’s coming from, but something about it makes me burst out laughing. “Listen to you. Acting like I was, like, watering your plants for you while you were on vacation or some shit. You could have told me. You should have told me.”
“I didn’t know what the hell you were going to think or how you would react,” he argues. “For all I knew, you’d be pissed over what I did.”
“Fuck off,” I growl. “That is such bullshit. After everything we’ve been through? You think I would betray you over something like this? You think I wouldn’t help you? I would’ve done everything in my power to keep you—”
“I didn’t want you to do that!” he snaps before I can finish. “Maybe I didn’t want you to have to, like, harbor a fugitive or whatever you want to call it. Maybe I don’t even want to be here now,” he adds with a growl. “I’m putting you both in danger by being here. I shouldn’t have come.”
“It’s too late for that now,” Leni tells him, but there’s no anger in her voice. Nobody in the world would blame her for being furious, for never forgiving him. I wouldn’t even blame her if she refused to be in the same room or the same apartment. Even if he did save her tonight.
“It’s not too late to get out of here before the two of you have to pay for what I did. I’m not going to stay.”
When he stands, I stand too, shaking my head, laughing at him. “Oh, right? Because it’s that easy? You come here, get cleaned up, and then you go? What if I go to the authorities tomorrow, tell them you’re alive and in town somewhere?”
“What if I leave before you can do that? I could go somewhere else, anywhere else, and you would never know where.”
“If you were going to do that,” I point out, folding my arms, “then why haven’t you done it yet? Why are you still here? I know why.” All it takes is the slightest shift of my gaze, glancing to the side where Leni sits. The way he lowers his gaze tells me I’m right.
His fists hang at his sides, flexing rhythmically. “I’ll do what I have to do. But I will not let you two get caught up. I haven’t spent seven fucking months living like a goddamn hermit to sacrifice you now. I could only ever hurt you.” When he says that, it’s Leni he’s talking to, Leni who he watches like a hawk. He can’t stay away from her. It makes me wonder how deep his feelings are—I didn’t know he had feelings for her in the first place, at least not the kind I have.
“And it would hurt if you ran away now,” she whispers. “Not only me. It would hurt Colt, too, even if he won’t say it out loud.”
“I don’t know,” I mutter, talking to her but glaring at him. “Maybe I wouldn’t give a shit. He didn’t give a shit about what it did to me all these months, did he? Reading my messages, not bothering to say a word back.” I can hardly believe the way it makes me feel when I say the words and remember all the time I spent typing those emails, keeping him updated, hoping like hell something I said would get through to him. Believing, being the only one who did believe, wondering how we were ever going to tell Mom he was gone, since even telling him she was still alive wasn’t enough to get a response.