Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“When do you want to go? Now?” I asked, eager to spend more time with her, even if I was around her pretty much twenty-four-seven.
“Just let me change,” she said, this time, the smile was lighting up her whole fucking face.
And I knew right then that I wanted to spend the rest of my fucking life making her brighten up like that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Vienna
I knew it would happen eventually.
He would have to leave.
I even knew that this was the longest time the twins had ever been stationed in Shady Valley since they became a biker club. Their life was on the road, even if it was painfully clear to me that Riff was ready for that to not be his reality anymore, and I couldn’t quite figure out why his club brothers hadn’t also seen what I did.
But, I guess, work was work. And a bunch of the other guys had left since I’d come to live with them. They didn’t say, but I imagined it was to drop off the guns that Riff and Raff had brought back from the South. So it was, in a way, their turn to get back to the job.
I just didn’t think it would be so soon.
Not that it was, technically, “soon” by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, we were closing in on February now.
I’d been there through a good chunk of winter, through Christmas, through New Year’s.
I guess I had to be grateful that he got to be with me for this long. Because I couldn’t have imagined Christmas without him there sitting beside me at the table, or in the living room next to the tree, handing me present after present.
I’d been working with the club members for weeks at that point, learning to make items that I could give the others for the holidays, since I didn’t have any money of my own, and I felt weird spending Riff’s money to buy everyone presents.
So with Morgaine, I learned to make some basic pottery and jewelry that I gave to the members of the club, as well as some neat personalized bath products like soaps or cologne.
With Murphy, I made a few fun little weapons, including one I gave to Riff as a present, liking the idea he had something from me to protect himself with since he’d been protecting me since we met.
I even took some lessons with Coach, who I’d grown close to thanks to the meditation and yoga sessions that had become like air to me, something I had to do to survive, not just as a practice, and he’d been teaching me to work with my hands, with tools, and to turn a plain piece of wood into little masterpieces.
I mean, first, we’d built a cool tree-like bookshelf for my/Riff’s room for me to display all the books I’d already read. Then he’d let me take the reins and build a little tree stand for Vernon and Cat by myself. Eventually, we scaled up, making an amazing apothecary cabinet for Morgaine, a new desk for Rook, a set of matching—but not too matchy—nightstands for Colter, and a display cabinet for Nyx’s gym.
He’d been the one to help me decide on, plan, and build a big wardrobe for Riff, since we were now struggling to find places to put both of our things. It was made out of scraps of all different kinds of wood, so it had these amazing contrasts of color that made it seem like some massively expensive piece you’d find in a design catalog, but in actuality, it had cost next to nothing, since we used a bunch of old wood Coach had lying around.
I think that finding all these little hobbies to work on, even if they might not be things that I took with me in any long-term way, had been a major part of the beginning of my healing journey.
Having things to do with my hands, but also things to think about that slowly crowded out a lot of the ugly memories and fears.
I was never going to be a carpenter or a potter or even someone who made soaps and candles. But they were important steps for me, safe ways for me to be with other people.
If anything, I was starting to wonder if maybe I could become a yoga instructor one day, since that was the activity that really just… struck a chord within me, became such an important part of my day.
I didn’t know if there was such a thing, but I was curious if there might be a way to incorporate trauma-informed therapy into a yoga practice. Guided meditations to go along with the yoga that was meant to release shame, guilt, and fear.
When I’d brought the idea up to my therapist, she said she thought that was something that the world desperately needed if it didn’t exist yet.