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)
Not that I owe any of them an explanation. Nobody asks questions—and nobody looks too long at me if we happen to pass in the hall. I might as well be living on the moon, away from humanity, even if I can hear them through the walls.
I unlock both bolts on the scarred front door of my third-floor apartment, glancing to the right and left one more time before opening the door and quickly closing it behind me. Once the locks are flipped again, I release a long breath and touch my forehead to the cool wood.
That was a close one back at the cemetery. I need to be more careful, which means not venturing out in the daytime. It would be too easy for Leni to spot me and maybe recognize me.
The thought makes me laugh—softly, bitterly—before lowering my hood and running a hand through my short hair. It’s longer now than I used to keep it, covering the random bits of damage to my scalp.
Turning the lights on only makes everything look bleaker. If I cared, I’d get some actual furniture, maybe lamps, to make it warmer and more homey. But who needs comfort? Who needs to pretend life is anything less bleak than it is? Anyway, it’s what I deserve. After what I did, the bare minimum is all I should ever have.
Not that I’m super upset about what happened to Dad. Fuck him. It’s the memories of everything I did to Leni—and how I ended up destroying her life—all because he wanted me to.
Though really, thinking back on what I saw at the cemetery, she doesn’t look like her life has been ruined. And she did leave those flowers for me. Does that mean she’s forgiven me? A brief smile touches the corners of my mouth. That’s rare nowadays, with pretty much nothing to smile about most of the time. It would be just like her to forgive me. Somehow, that’s who she is. Life has handed her so much pain, disappointment, and shame, but she’s still Leni.
I don’t understand that kind of person and can’t pretend to. I carry grudges. I hate, I resent, and I want to inflict pain on those who have hurt me. Sometimes, imagining inflicting that pain is all that gets me through the worst of my solitude—the long, lonely nights spent doing absolutely nothing. Back in the day, there was always something to do: a party, a night out with my brother, maybe someone to hook up with. There was never a shortage of ways to distract myself or reasons to keep going.
Now, all of that is gone. And I have to wonder why I’m still alive while Bradley is dead in my grave.
As far as I know from the internet searches I’ve done at the library, there haven’t been any big stories about him going missing. The family must be keeping it quiet, which, of course, they’d do to keep their name out of the media. Not like they’re anything special, but they think they are. In our world, that’s enough.
No, not our world. Their world. I have a world of my own now, where what might have once been a big bedroom now serves as an entire studio apartment. A tiny sink, a two-burner stove, and an oven barely big enough to fit a plate inside serve as my kitchen. The bathroom is so small I can barely turn around without bumping into something, and the sofa doubles as my bed. I’m a lifetime away from the sprawling house I blew up seven months ago.
And I’m not the person I was back then, either. Going to the bathroom and catching a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror over the chipped, permanently stained porcelain sink is always a stark reminder. Not that I could ever forget—I can’t move my face the way I used to. It really sucks when I forget, and the tightness of my scar tissue reminds me I’ll never be normal again.
There’s no point in trying to avoid the sight of myself. Instead, I stop and stare straight at my reflection. The left side of my face is mostly what it used to be, but the right? It’s a map of twisted scar tissue, still a pale pink that I guess will eventually turn into a ghostly white. A monster, in other words. But then, I always was. Thinking back, going over every ugly thing I did at Dad’s command, it all helps me understand that my outside now matches my insides.
And it’s even worse than that. I can’t kid myself. When I look into my blue eyes, I see the eyes of someone who, if given the chance, would do everything the same. Because as much as I crave something to do, something to make me feel alive again, I crave Leni twice as much. Ten times as much. The feeling fills me, consumes me, makes me toss and turn in a cold sweat. Knowing where she is—with my brother—and that it would be so easy to go to her, to have her again, to satisfy every dark yearning.