Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
I bite my tongue, not telling her that she’ll have to finish the series on her own.
We make a nest of blankets on the huge couch in the media room and Grace turns on something with actors who are obviously in their late twenties but are playing characters in their teens. I don’t know what it is. It doesn’t matter. She watches the movie, and I watch Grace out of the side of my eye.
I could’ve lost her.
But my heart is broken because I did lose something… someone… Riley. And that’s starting to sink in the more I’m home. I can feel her absence here.
It’s so quiet.
There’s no humming, no singing, no bracelets jangling as she flits about doing this and that. There’s no life. She took it with her, leaving me dead inside again.
It’s too quiet.
We have to get back to normal. Or whatever normal was before Riley.
I get up early, having not slept again, and do a quick run on the treadmill, make my shake and force it down, and get dressed for work—boring black suit, plain white shirt, bland black tie, dull solid socks. I make Grace microwave pancakes, thankful there’s still some in the freezer, even if they’re a little frostbitten.
I kiss Grace on the forehead and she runs out to Mom, who agreed to take her to school today. Janey is going to pick her up this afternoon.
I go to work. I sit in a meeting, silently scowling as people talk about profits and losses, not giving a shit about any of it. Jeannie asks if I want lunch and I tell her no. I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to read another memo, I don’t want anything.
I want Riley.
Goddammit. I push away from my desk, walking over the window and staring out at the horizon. Is she out there somewhere? Close? Far away? That I don’t even know is a stabbing pain in my gut. I could call her, but what would I say? I’m sorry? I am, but that doesn’t change anything.
After Michelle died, putting Grace first was natural. She was all I had left.
This feels different.
It hurts to lose Riley by my own actions, not by some fate-decreed, out of my control loss. And while I do not, for a second, regret choosing Grace, I wish there were a way I could go back. Back to when Riley was mine and we were building something great. Back to when she didn’t tell me about the ghost haunting her. Fuck, back to when she left Austin’s house at only sixteen years old. I’d make him never follow her.
I’d keep her safe for her whole life.
But I can’t go back. There’s never been a way to do that. The only way to go is… forward.
At five o’clock, I leave, having not accomplished a fucking thing. Not that anyone notices or cares about that. They’ve all been scurrying out of my way as I stomped and snarled my way around the office all day. I’m sure there’s a warning on the grapevine again. ‘Watch out for Cameron, he’s back to being an asshole’, which is true.
If only they realized it’s gonna get worse and may never get better again.
As I pull up to Cole’s to pick up Grace, I realize it’s about to get a whole lot worse right now. Everyone’s here. There are so many cars, it looks like a block party for rich assholes. I sigh heavily and roll my eyes. I should’ve seen this coming, but I’ve been too lost in my own head to think about what anyone else might be doing.
I don’t even get the chance to knock on the door. Cole opens it as I’m walking up the driveway. Leaning against the doorframe, he looks me up and down, his frown a reflection of my own.
“If we’re doing this, let’s fucking do it.”
“Your funeral,” he tells me. And like that, I know all gloves are off. The one thing you don’t do to someone who’s grieving is make jokes about death. If they do, fine. They can cope how they need to. But you don’t do it to them, especially not first.
I push past him, into the living room. My siblings and their spouses are here. Kayla is likely the representative for Mom and Dad because there’s no way this intervention is happening without their knowledge and blessing.
“Whatever you want to say, I don’t give a single, solitary shit. This is between me and Riley and Grace and doesn’t involve any of you, so fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. And fuck off.” Each of those dismissals is directed at one of my siblings. I leave the spouses out of it… for now.
“Wow, look at you with all your fancy vocabulary and proper gentlemanly behavior. I can see why you’re the golden child,” Kyle deadpans. He’s usually the roughest, most unpolished of the Harringtons, but I might give him a run for his money at this point despite my thousand-dollar suit.