Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 569(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
It would be fine. It would be fine.
When I slipped back into his room, the blue screen of his phone flashed and caught my attention. I glanced down at the ribbon of text still on the screen:
Nash: Did you figure out what to do about the girl with the pink Porsche?
Nash: I’m telling you. Resentment is a real thing.
Resentment? My chest tightened until I couldn’t catch a good breath. Bellamy resented me… He wanted me to go. I was an issue to be fixed, something he needed a solution to. He wanted to break up, and was that why he’d started a fight tonight?
Tears pricked my eyes, and the ugly, black tendrils of rejection set in. The familiar symptoms rising like a rogue wave and drowning me in an instant. I couldn’t stick around and wait for him to deal a death blow.
With tears silently streaming down my face, I forced myself to not get back in that bed, lay down, and pretend like everything would be okay. It clearly wasn’t. So I got dressed, then collected my phone and purse, leaving all my other clothes behind.
I cast a glance at Bellamy, the pain in my chest digging in like claws. I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t want to deal with the mess of him watching me leave. Because I knew he wanted me. But he didn’t.
It was only when I passed Arlo’s ajar bedroom door that I realized I couldn’t leave him without a goodbye.
I tore a page from the notepad in the kitchen and scribbled out a note:
Peehead,
I have to go away for a while, and I couldn’t say goodbye. I’m sorry.
Look after your mom and be good.
I love you little guy.
Drew
I left it on his bedside table, taking one last glance at how peaceful he looked with his unicorn clutched to his chest. Then I placed the rest of my cash on the kitchen counter for Carol. I wouldn’t need it where I was going. Money wasn’t an issue there.
As soon as I pulled out of the drive, I called my mom, refusing to look in my rearview mirror at the ramshackle little house that felt more like home than anywhere else ever had.
“Darling. I’m just having my morning Mimosa. It must be late there...”
“Can you get me the next flight out?” Tears blurred the road in front of me.
“Of course. Dayton straight to Marseilles, first class.” She sounded far too pleased about my heartbreak. “I’ll send a car to pick you up once you land.”
I was running to the only place I could go, the only place I had left. Halfway across the world, and I wasn’t sure it would be far enough, because with each passing moment, I was cracking open, bleeding from the inside out.
For the first time, I understood why people married for money and not love.
52
Bellamy
Something hit me in the face, and my eyes popped open to the early morning light.
“I don’t like you!” Arlo shouted, then slammed my door.
I swatted his old, stuffed donkey from my chest to the floor. “What the…” And when I rolled over to grab onto Drew, she wasn’t there.
I sat up, raking a hand through my hair just as the door swung open again.
Arlo stormed in, a SpongeBob pillow lifted over his head. “You’re a butthole!” Then he lobbed the pillow at me.
I shot out of bed, snagging him by the back of his pajama top before he’d made it down the hall. “Hey, come here.”
He attempted to wrestle free, but I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder.
“What’s your deal?”
He pounded his tiny fists over my back. “You’re a Cockblock!”
Jesus…
“You didn’t tell me Miss Drew had to leave!” His fist kept slamming against me, and I just stared at the end of the hall. Leave?
Without putting him down, I went back to my room and opened the closet. Her clothes were still there. Her suitcases stacked at the top.
Then I went to the window, twisting the cord on the blinds. Her car was gone, Hendrix’s tarp that usually covered it, a messy ball on my hood.
“Put me down.” Arlo kicked his feet at me, and I dropped him to the bed.
She left? I glanced back through the blinds. Left for work or to grab breakfast maybe… “She probably went to get donuts or something, Arlo.”
“No, she didn’t. She left me a note. You didn’t tell me she had to leave…” His eyes watered before he threw himself face down on my pillow.
She’d left and gone where? Back to her dad’s? I mean, Jesus Christ, we’d gotten in a fight, then fucked and made up, and she left?
A soft knock sounded on my door, and I glanced back at my mom, standing in the doorway with a handful of cash fanned out like it was poker night. “Bellamy. Why was two grand in cash on the kitchen counter?”