Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 142664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 713(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 713(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Of course, she did, but she had never turned it on me before, so I never noticed the power behind it. She made me feel like shit. Like I meant less than nothing to her, the man she had spent the last four years with.
I knew she was a cold bitch, but I didn’t realize how deep that coldness ran. I slammed my hand against the steering wheel as tears gathered and rolled down my cheeks unchecked.
GARRETT
“We fucked up royally, didn’t we?”
“How so?”
“I’ve been thinking since the wedding, in fact, since the night she attacked Dad in his house. While we thought we were protecting her over the years, she was the one protecting herself.”
“So, what do you plan to do about it?”
“We’re not sure; that’s why we’re asking you. I guess we realize that somehow you do know her better than we thought we did. Everything else aside, I just want to make sure that she’s not hurting. If she is, I think that would kill me.”
“It would kill all of us, Bri; we’re all equally to blame in this,” Cameron answered him. They’d shown up at my door sometime after lunch when I was sure they were all supposed to be at work.
The fact that they came here now meant two things, one, that they were genuinely worried about their sister, and two, they didn’t want her to know that they had come to see me. I’m going to tell her of course, because she’d see it as a betrayal if I don’t. But they still don’t seem to get it.
I wasn’t going to explain because I knew where they were coming from. It must be hard for the siblings, as close as they usually are, to have this rift between them. She just needs time and she’d come around, which is something I doubt even she knows.
But once she works it out in her head in her own time, she’d come to the realization that she’s mad and hurt because she loves them, including her Dad. But as is usual for humans, they want instant gratification. They expect to say sorry and have things go back to the way they were before they fucked up.
Not taking into account that the other party still has their own trauma, which is completely different from the perpetrators to work through. “Your sister just needs time. I won’t let you rush her, not that you can. And just so you know, full disclosure, I will be telling her that you came here today.”
“We figured as much. We don’t want you to hide it from her; in fact, we came now because we know she doesn’t want to see us right now, and we don’t want to seem like we’re pushing. But you’ve got to understand how hard this is for us as well.”
“What kind of relationship did your Dad have with your sister before the divorce?” The three of them looked at each other as if they didn’t understand why I was asking.
“They were very close. She was like his shadow. Dad used to spoil her, anything she wanted, she got. And not just Dad, the whole extended family. She was the first and only girl for a very long time on both sides. There wasn’t anything Alyssa didn’t have, and Dad was so proud of her.” Brian finished talking and gazed off into space, and Cameron picked up where he left off.
“Dad used to carry her around on his shoulders; you could hear her laughter all through the house. He was the one who taught us that we must always protect her. The two of them used to play games together, and he’d always read her a bedtime story at night.”
“Isn’t it weird that none of us realized Mom was sick back then? It just seemed natural for Dad to pick up the slack, but we didn’t even realize that there was anything wrong.” Trey clinked the ice in the empty glass in his hand.
“And how was she after the divorce?” Again, they gave it some thought before Brian once again took the lead. “She was very withdrawn. I don’t think she smiled for a very long time after that. She used to cry so hard she’d stop breathing.”
“Yeah, for the first few years, she was like a zombie. You couldn’t get a rise out of her; nothing really interested her anymore. She didn’t really have any friends back then because she stopped doing everything.”
“Then somewhere around the time Trey went away to college, she kinda snapped out of it, I guess. She wasn’t the same; she wasn’t withdrawn and sullen, but she wasn’t like she used to be. Something was missing.”
“Yeah, her warmth. She became kind of methodical. I noticed it the first time I came back from school. At first, I thought Helen or Mitzie had been bullying her, but she said they weren’t. But I realized she stopped talking about Dad.”