Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
I don’t have to say that Aiden made me weary but not defeated. Because we’re not the same person. We didn’t have the same life experiences, and I would never compare myself to another person. We’re all made differently, and it doesn’t mean he’s wrong or that I’m right.
“I think it actually takes far more work to be pissed off and bitter at whatever happened in the past than to remain hopeful,” I say.
He laughs tonelessly. “You’re right. But still, I can’t, and I won’t. I’m not bitter, and I’m not angry. I’ve let that go. I just believe in self-preservation. And I suppose I still hate my birth parents a little, but I can’t wipe that out, no matter how much therapy and money I have.”
He’s done the time and talked to professionals. He’s tried to fix himself. He has, to the point where he can function. This man isn’t like other people. He’s not entirely over the past, but I think he’s made a sort of peace with it. It’s the future, and all the things that haven’t happened yet, that’s the problem. I would say it’s fear, but I know it’s not that simple.
And yet…maybe it is.
“I think fear does nothing but lie to us. I’ve listened to plenty of that over the past ten months, but I just can’t let it be the only thing that’s keeping me together, or I’ll shatter. I can’t let it consume all my energy. I want to absorb goodness from the world and put goodness back in the energy cycle. If you reap what you sow, I’d rather be eating tasty vegetables and growing beautiful flowers than eating dung and festering in stinkweed.” I have to stop him before he can say anything, so I quickly add, “Yes, I know, I know. My obsession with dung and butts is showing again.”
He very nearly messes up and cracks a smile. “Is stinkweed real?”
“It is. I think it’s a member of the cabbage family. I have plenty growing around here, though the smell isn’t all that bad. I can’t say it’s ever been a problem for me. Then again, I’m not cooking and eating it, so maybe it only really reeks during that phase.”
“I see,” he says.
Jesus, there it is. Just the lift of one corner of his mouth is so damn sensual that it nearly knocks me backward.
“It’s not just the contract,” he repeats, losing the lip twitch and all the boyish charm that came with it. “It’s ingrained in me. This is my life. This is how I want my life to be. I’ve worked hard to get it to this point.”
“Where nothing can hurt you.”
“Yes.”
That word is a knife so sad and sharply honed that it tears at my insides. I’ve had my whole life stolen from me, yet I’ve never been in such emotional anguish that I had to completely shut down and remain that way for fear that I would be broken otherwise.
I wish only one thing for him, and I need to tell him in a way he understands. There is zero room for error right now. I’m no poet or wordsmith, so there’s about a hundred percent chance I’ll mess this up and throw in a butt analogy.
I want to touch him because what I think he needs most at this moment is human connection, but I don’t, even though my fingertips ache for contact with his skin.
“Beau?” I start, and he stares me down, waiting for me to go on. “I think some hurts are worth it. I think they have to be or the world would just be all horror and sadness. There is goodness, too, for all the bad. I think if you want to be truly happy, you need to be able to be open to the pain and realize that sometimes, no matter how much it hurts, it’s worth it.”
The storm has passed, and he’s already far, far away. I’ve said the wrong thing. I’ve butchered it even without butts or stinkweed or dung. This wasn’t about letting me down; it was about trying to lighten his load, and I failed at that. My insides twist with my own emotional shitstorm.
Whatever. At least I kept it in my head. He won’t know I thought it. I hope.
“That’s just the problem,” he mutters, sounding far away, even though he’s standing right in front of me and just through the doorway.
Maybe there’s a portal between us I can’t see, and we’re actually in different worlds, different times, different places. Perhaps that’s where we’ll always be, no matter how close to each other we get. It’s impossibly silly that I’m even thinking about distance and wishing it away with two contracts and just a few weeks between us.
He continues, “I don’t expect to find happiness. I know it’s an unreachable goal, and I’m in the business of being a pragmatist.”