Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“Matthew I didn’t know that he was going to act like that, I didn’t go there with the intention to do anything wrong.”
“Do you know how fucking careless that was? I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me that you were going there. If it was that innocent why didn’t you call and tell me you were leaving your father’s to go there?”
“I don’t have to tell you everything Matthew, you’re not my keeper. Dan was a friend I thought I was going to help out a friend…” she yelled the words at me in a fit of pique.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“I said you’re not my keeper, I’ve already had one stalker I don’t need another, I don’t need or want anyone else controlling my every move.” My ears went numb for a hot second as the words hit me. Was she comparing me to the monster who’d terrorized her childhood? Is that what the fuck she’d just done? The hurt was almost physical as I looked at her trying to gauge the situation. Did she really see me that way? Is that what she thought I was doing when all I cared about was protecting her and trying to give her the best life I could? I felt that cold Steele rage forming in the pit of my stomach. Something in my face must’ve tipped her off to the affect her words had on me because she started back tracking.
“I didn’t mean…Matthew I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that…Matthew…” she was talking to air because I was already out the door. I jogged down the stairs and out the door. I needed to be alone, needed time to think before I said or did something that would unravel all the work I’d done in the last few weeks. My heart was a block of ice in my chest and my mind was blank. The girl I’d fallen in love with and who I’d believed was coming to feel the same way about me had just called me a monster. The joke’s on me.
Chapter 23
I pulled out of the garage just as she came running, calling out for me. I didn’t even look at her as I drove off. I needed to get as far the fuck away from her as possible. I was so mad that I couldn’t even hold a thought. Anger and hurt were the only two things I could hold onto. I wanted to smash my fists into something or someone. I tried to think rationally about what had happened, how our day had been so drastically derailed. I remembered the day before when we were laughing and loving. How I’d looked at her beautiful face while she was laughing at something silly the douche had done to make the girls laugh. The feeling of accomplishment I got that she had come so far since we’d found each other.
Now this. A complete three sixty. I drove through town trying to calm down trying to make sense of her words, her accusation. But all I felt was anger that she could even think such a thing. I think beneath it all I was more upset at her for putting herself in harm’s way than anything else. In my heart of hearts I knew she hadn’t betrayed me with him, but her words were a betrayal, not something that I could easily overlook. As much as I had come to love this girl there was no way I could accept her painting me with the same brush as that asshole. Not after the shit I’d been learning about him.
I had no idea what I was going to do with this shit. I kept hearing Josh telling me to stay cool but overriding his warning were her ugly words. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to take them back, that shit was weak. Of all the things she could’ve said to me that was the worst and I wasn’t sure I could forgive her.
My phone rang off the hook but I didn’t answer. I knew when it was her because I had chosen a special ringtone for her and I knew when it was Josh. I found myself at the beach where I’d first accepted that she was mine that she would be mine forever. I felt that same jump in my heart as I had that day, the same strong emotion that had captured me there on that boardwalk.
There was a battle going on inside me, the love I held for her and the new bitterness I was beginning to feel.
Hours later as the sun was going down and my body reminded me that I hadn’t eaten all day I headed back to the house. I’d turned my phone off hours ago so I had no idea what I was going to find when I got there. I avoided my family who were all sitting around the kitchen table looking worried.