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)
But if it did apply to a person, I know that for me, that person is Beau.
Fucking liar, betrayer, cheese toes Beau.
“I think he sounds like an asshole,” a voice says.
Leave it to my sister to know just what it takes to make me laugh. But she doesn’t know I’m smiling for a completely different reason. A reason that has to do with said man who has been living rent-free in my head for far too long now and a conversation we once had about an obsession with butts.
“I don’t know. He did make it possible for you all to be here,” I murmur.
And they are. My mom, my dad, and my sister. It has been over a month, but Aiden was taken into custody last week, and he’s now awaiting trial. We’re all gathered in my little farmhouse kitchen for the first time. Since they flew, they only arrived last night after renting a car and driving all the way out to the farmhouse. I haven’t seen them face-to-face in over eleven months. Last night, I cried as much as I could possibly cry, all happy, relieved, aching tears.
“I don’t think so,” Katie grunts as she butters a homemade bran muffin.
When I found out my family was flying in, I did a ton of baking. I never used to bake, cook, or do any gardening in my old life. Okay, so I didn’t manage to plant a garden this year because I didn’t have a tiller, and I let that stop me, but not next year.
Not. Next. Year.
“I know. Technically, it was the FTC and the police, and he was just working with them, but he did do his fair share.”
“Was his security or whatever company even involved with that? Because I’m doubtful about how much he actually did besides tattle and give information to the right people.”
“That’s still something.” My heart pounds. “It’s something because, without him, I would be the one still under investigation. I could be the one facing jail time.” That’s the wrong thing to say because Mom looks like she’s going to burst into tears again. She cried as much as I did last night and early this morning when she got up around the same time I did and had a cup of coffee with me out on the porch.
Katie took the couch, I took the smaller spare bed, and my parents took my room. I didn’t sleep much in that bed last night as I kept thinking about the last person who slept in it.
Over five weeks ago.
I don’t want to miss him. I don’t want to be that person. At the same time, I don’t want to be a hardened, unenlightened person just because it’s easier to be that way and it hurts less. I do want to focus on the good Beau did, and he did do me a huge turn. He was instrumental in giving me my freedom, my name, my history, and my life back. Because of him, I have a choice again. I don’t have to live in constant fear. Was he alone? No. But was he instrumental in achieving my freedom? Yes. Is he still important to me?
I think I already answered that based on the fact that I can’t stop thinking about him and how he felt a lot like home.
Katie huffs, Mom wipes away tears, and Dad digs into another carrot muffin. I made some of those, too. Also, banana chocolate chip and six different varieties of cookies.
“You’re coming home, right?” Katie asks the question that my parents haven’t been able to bring themselves to put out there. I think they’re afraid I’m going to stay.
But I don’t want them to be afraid. I don’t want them to see this place as a dead-end last resort. I want them to look at it the way I’ve come to look at it. With pride, peace, and love.
“I don’t…I don’t think so. At least not right now.” Mom’s lip starts to tremble, and I rush over and wrap my arms around her—chair and all—since she’s sitting at the table beside my dad. Katie hovers anxiously around the kitchen like a mom-tears bomb is about to go off, and she doesn’t want to be in the emotional splash zone. “It’s not that I don’t want to. Because I do. Kind of. But I have this place now. It was originally my escape and hideaway, but I’ve kind of become attached to it. I’ve been thinking more and more about what I want to do with my career now that I can go back to having one, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to give up what I’m doing. If I resume being an up-and-coming anything, I’d like to do something sustainable.”
“But we miss you!” Katie exclaims.
“I know.” Mom isn’t going into full-on mom-wailing mode, thank goodness, but the few tears that trickle down her cheeks are enough to slay me. Dad, on the other hand, looks at me helplessly. “I know. I miss you too,” I add.