Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
So I do the only thing I can do at the moment and sit my ass down at the table. I put distance between us and act broody, so I’m less approachable. I wait, I try to process, and I watch Aspen make magic happen in this kitchen that I normally just ghost through. Food is for sustenance. It’s for staying alive. It’s never tasted…
The first bite I take of the pancakes she sets in front of me when they’re done makes me want to embarrass myself all over again because it fucks with my emotions. Emotions. Yes, good lord, I have them. I admit it. I do. And this? These pancakes don’t taste like sawdust and grit. They taste like heaven. They taste like fluffy, buttery goodness. Like tart and sweet berries. Like a whole lot of the tangy syrup that she’s made by boiling down other berries.
She sits down across from me and smiles at me like she knows. Like she just gets it.
Everything she’s made since she’s been here has been good, but these? I think she just broke me with these.
I think last night broke me too. It broke my brain and wrecked me. The me I thought I knew my entire life. That person is just…he just evaporated. I’m broken up, and there’s this being at the center of me that feels new and innocent and hopeful, and I know how to deal with all that even less than whatever happened last night or this morning so far.
What did she say about being wrecked? Because I think I’m going to be. I think I am. And maybe it’s not horrible.
Aspen takes far longer to eat than I do since I basically scarf everything down at a record pace. And when she’s finished, we both sit there in silence. It feels a little bit strained but not as awkward as it should be. She finally looks up at me, and the intensity of her gaze is like a one-two knockout.
“If you legitimately don’t want this, then please say so. I don’t want to hurt you,” she says.
I want to tell her that the idea of her hurting me is ludicrous, but I can’t say it. I might be a surly asshole at times, but I’ve never been known to lie. If I can’t say something, I just straight up say so or avoid the topic altogether. The fact is, it’s not that ludicrous. I’ve shown her the tiniest of cracks in my armor, and I know she could very well pierce through them if she desired. I know it would be painful in ways my previous injuries have done nothing to prepare me for.
It would hurt a lot, like how it used to hurt when everyone went home for Christmas or Easter or other holidays when I was at boarding school, but not me. It would hurt like being shuffled from one summer camp to another, so I was never around my grandfather either. It was agonizing before I finally learned to stop expecting it to be anything less and then desensitized myself to it. Before I got myself under control and shut myself down. I was doing that long before I ever made it to the military. My childhood was basically a battleground, and sometimes I was just fighting myself, but the shit that went on inside me made the real battles I endured later in life feel like a playground.
At least that enemy could be systematically overcome. Problems could be solved with tangible strategies. But the shit that was going on inside me? That was basically a war with hope, and you can never win one of those. Hope is the deadliest enemy of all.
“It’s not that I don’t want it.” She has no idea how hard it is for me to say those words.
She lets me off easy, smiling at me with real happiness. “Good. Because I’m a grown woman. I’m my own person. I told you that last night, but I want it to sink in. I also want you to know that if I want to please you, or at least try to please you, then it’s our business, and it’s going to be good for both of us if we want it to be good.”
“Aspen…”
“Patrick.”
She looks like a bulldog right now. The cutest, most lovely bulldog. What can I do to fight against her and win? Do I even want to fight against her? Do I want to win? Do I want to keep pushing and shoving and fighting my way away from everything and everyone? She’s in my life for good now. That’s already been established. I do think she means what she says. That if we do this, it doesn’t mean we have to stay married for real. It doesn’t mean we’re dating. It might change things, but she’s mature and emotionally stable enough to handle that.