Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
How can she be alive yet I hurt more than I did when I thought she was dead?
Something chimes from the bedroom. She turns and pushes her walker toward the bed, taking her phone off the nightstand and answering it. “Hello? No. I haven’t done my exercises yet. No. I haven’t—yeah, I know. I will. I know.” She closes her eyes for a few seconds and blows out a long breath. “Fine. I’ll meet you out front.” Ending the call, she glances up at me. “I have to go. That was Izzy.”
“Who’s Izzy?”
“Felix’s wife. I go to therapy four times a week, but I have exercises to do at home every day. Izzy feels very responsible for my recovery since she’s the reason Felix didn’t let me die.”
“Sounds like I owe her a debt of gratitude.”
“No.” She frowns. “You don’t. I’m not her. I’m not the woman you asked to marry you in a donut shop. I’m the car that needs to be sent to the junkyard because my parts are worth more than the whole of me. I’m nothing but a liability.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever fucking say that again.”
Pushing her walker toward the door, she mumbles, “Izzy’s coming to get me. Give my apologies to your date from last night. Felix was right; I should have let him run my errands.”
I follow her to the stairs. “It wasn’t a date.”
“Can you get my walker?” Josie holds the banister and lowers herself to the top step.
“I’ll carry you.”
“I can do it.” She takes it one step at a time on her butt.
I watch her. I used to watch her cut into dead bodies and help solve cases. I used to watch students study her, envy her, want to be her. Now, she’s scooting down my stairs on her butt. She wishes she would have stayed dead. Maybe she’s right. Maybe that woman is gone. Still, I just … fucking love her so much. Reason 683 why everything hurts right now.
“Are you going to tell your parents, or am I?”
She glances over her shoulder when she reaches the bottom stair and stands with the assistance of the banister.
“For that matter,” I say, carrying her walker down the stairs, “when were you going to tell me? Never?”
“I’ll call my parents.” She frowns. “And the plan was to come back to you when I was functional again.”
“And if you’re never functional?”
She takes her walker and heads toward the front door. “Then that will suck for me, but it doesn’t have to suck for you.” She opens the door. “Call the woman with the red dress. Apologize. And move on with your life like you were doing before you saw me at CVS.”
“Stop. Just … stop!” I ball my hands, ready to send one of them through the wall. I’m ready to crawl out of my skin. How can Josie be alive and it feel like a nightmare? Where is my Josie? “I told you she’s a friend. That’s it. I don’t want to talk about her again. I want to know why after six months I found out you’re alive by pure luck. Happenstance. I was supposed to be your husband. Your. Husband.”
She stares at the floor. It’s hard to read her. Is she numb to what I’m feeling?
“A serial killer. That’s weird, right? I mean, I’ve had such a fascination with death. I was really good at my job. Dr. Cornwell used to say ‘eerily’ good. He said I thought like a killer when I worked on cases.” She chuckles. “I suppose every soul has to find a new life. At least this life has been mostly worthwhile. Good deeds this time.”
I deflate. She’s unfocused, almost indifferent to the words I say to her. I want to hold her. I want her to hold me back. I want to feel her love. I need to feel missed. I need to feel us.
What happened to us?
“Izzy’s here. Thanks for taking care of me. Please let me tell my parents first.”
Taking care of her? Does she have any idea how much it’s killing me to let her leave?
“I need the address,” I say. “I have to go in to finish up a few reports, but I can pick you up by three.”
“I’m staying with them for now. So if you pick me up, they’ll just have to come get me again tomorrow.”
My heart has been stuck in my throat since I saw her yesterday at the CVS. I hate that she’s three feet from me. She’s alive. Yet she doesn’t get that she belongs with me.
“I’ll pick you up at three. And I’ll return you to their house tomorrow,” I say.
And I’ll drop you off the next day. Pick you up. Drop you off. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
“If you have plans later, don’t let me disrupt them.”