Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Well I have secrets too.”
Again, petty and again, I don’t care.
Besides I’m not going to tell him the truth, not now. And the truth is that I forgot. Which is crazy because it’s a big deal. It’s something that I always wanted: to go after my dream, for someone to believe in me. And I know he does; I know that. Even after everything that’s not something I have doubts about. So I would have told him but being on the road, living in a little bubble with him, made me forget everything else.
Even something that I always wanted so badly.
Which just goes to show how crazy I am about him.
And how he repeatedly keeps hurting me.
Not to mention, I wanted to tell him yesterday; that’s why I went to the bar.
When Shep had texted me that he was there, I was angry. Outside of his regular check-ins over the calls that would last about two minutes, we hadn’t had much contact. And not from my lack of trying either. Whenever I called him, I’d get his voicemail and whenever I texted him, he’d reply back hours later quoting that he’d been busy with the championship game.
Which I understood.
Despite getting a bad feeling about it all.
And then I found out—from his brother no less—that he was in Bardstown last night because they had a day off.
Of course I was angry.
I was also afraid that maybe like me, he’d given himself a deadline as well.
That while I was getting ready to tell him the truth, he was getting ready to end things after the championship game.
Which would’ve been ironic, wouldn’t it?
And totally like him.
Just as I was planning to begin things, he was planning to finish them.
And lo and behold, he did.
Which prompts me to further add, “And I can’t wait for it. I can’t wait to get away from it all. I think it’ll be good for me. Just me and my passion. My dream, you know? No pain. No heartbreak. No one to hurt me there and –”
“Full circle.”
“What?”
I know I’ve asked him to clarify what he meant. But I don’t think he’s in any position to respond just yet. Because he’s… burning.
Not literally of course.
But I think the blazing heat that I’d felt from him back at the house has now spread. It’s gone beyond his eyes and has overtaken his entire body. That looks flushed. Darker. His cheekbones. The side of his neck with that vein pulsing. The triangle of his throat that’s visible from his wrinkled shirt. Even his forearms look darker, his fisted hands.
“I brought you here,” he says, his voice somehow sounding hot as well, and rough. “For full circle.”
“F-full circle of what?” I ask, my own breaths getting messy now.
“Of my life.”
“Your life?”
He shifts on his feet.
He opens and closes his fists.
His breaths turn choppy then smooth, then back again.
It only takes about ten seconds for him to do all these things but somehow I feel like for him, it was days. It was decades. It was all twenty-six years of his life.
Then, with a deep and smooth breath and his fists open, he says, “It all began here. In this room. This is where I grew up. In this house. I was born in this house too. Actually, I was born just down the hallway. They couldn’t get my mom to the hospital in time. So me and my twin brother, we were really born in this house. Conrad helped from what he tells me. Because my dad wasn’t there. He was never there for anything or for any of us. So it wasn’t anything new but anyway. That’s not what I’m trying to tell you. What I’m trying to tell you is I may have been born two doors down, but my life started in this room when I was five.
“I was sleeping right there”—he points to the bed—“it was a different bed of course but I heard my father crying in the backyard. Because it was summer and I guess the window was open. So his voice had carried and I went down to find him. I went down and… that was the day I learned who or what I was.”
He shifts on his feet again, something flickering through his eyes, something akin to shame and it tightens my chest.
“By now I’m sure you’ve figured out what my secret is,” he goes on, his gaze locked on mine. “I’m angry. All the time. Every day. I’m on the edge, ready to explode, ready to do damage, to destroy things. And I get it from my dad. He was angry too. He was a lot of things: a drunk, a cheater, an abuser. He’d hit my mom. He’d hit Conrad. I’m not sure about the genetics of it all. If things like these can be passed down or if it’s just a coincidence, my anger and his. That not one or two but three members of the Thorne family share the same trait. My father, Ledger, and me...”