Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
In that hospital room, staring at my grandfather. His stoic expression, his face saying what I think I already knew in my heart but not in my head yet. “She’s gone.” The words cut me off at the knees, and I swear I blacked out for a minute. All I saw was darkness until I felt two strong arms lift me and place me on the bed.
I snapped out of the darkness. “No!” I shook my head in disbelief. “No, no, no, no, no,” I chanted over and over again. “You’re lying,” I hissed at him. “You’re lying. She’s not gone.” I looked at my father, wanting him to tell me it wasn’t true. But I could tell from his eyes, from the way he was looking at me, he wasn’t lying to me.
“I’m so, so sorry.” His voice sounded as broken as my soul was at that moment. It felt like half of me, fuck that, the whole of me was gone with her. Like a piece of me was going to be forever lost.
“I have to go to her.” I turned to get out of the bed. “I have to go and be with her.”
“You can’t.” My grandfather came to stand beside the bed next to my father.
“It’s cordoned off; no one can go in.” He said the words, and I thought at that moment I hated him. I hated him for telling me this.
“Where was she?” I asked, my voice as dead as my heart.
My grandfather looked at my father, not sure if he should tell me. “He’s not going to stop until you tell him,” my father communicated to my grandfather.
“She flew out of the window. She died on impact.” He said the words, and all I knew was I had to turn to the side, and I threw up everywhere.
“Fuck,” my grandfather said as he rushed out of the room to get someone. The nurse came back in and called someone to come and clean it up.
My father went to get me something to drink, and all I could do was stare at the cream-colored wall. “Where is she?”
“She’s going to be sent to the coroner,” he murmured softly. “There is going to be an autopsy performed.”
“What about everyone else?” I asked, even though, to be honest, I didn’t care. At that moment, I wished everyone had died, including me.
“Waylon didn’t make it either,” my grandfather said, and I laid my head back on the bed and closed my eyes, never wanting to wake up again. But sadly, I did.
Every day, the alarm rings, and I have to ask whoever is listening why. Why keep me here? My eyes open again, taking in the darkness as I take another gulp of the whiskey, getting up right after and heading to the bedroom. I place the bottle on my bedside table, falling onto the covers of the bed.
I look up at the ceiling. “I miss you,” I tell the empty room, “every fucking day.” My eyes close. “I wish you were here,” I mumble as my eyes get heavier. “I wish I was there.” Those are the last words I say before the darkness takes me.
It feels like it’s been five minutes when the alarm blares from the side. I reach out my hand and move it around, knocking the bottle of whiskey to the floor. It shatters all over the place. I get up on my elbow, looking down at the amber liquid with glass shattered around it. “Well, this is a wake-up,” I say, rolling to the other side of the bed and grabbing a pair of shoes before going to get a broom. I sweep up the glass. “What a waste of good alcohol,” I mumble as I finish cleaning it. I look over to the bedside table at the picture of Jennifer. “Morning, baby,” I greet her before turning and heading to the shower.
Thirty minutes later, I’m grabbing my mug of steaming, hot black coffee and heading out the back door. My hair is still wet from my shower when I slide my boots on as I walk down the steps, headed to the backyard. I look at the side, at the sun slowly coming up.
I walk past the two black pickup trucks parked right next to the shed where we keep the tools, going to the far corner of the yard where the red barn is located. I’m making my way to the office building that is halfway to the barn. I open the glass door and turn on the lights before I make my way past the reception desk toward my office. “Time to start the day.” I pull out my chair. “Another day I’m closer to death.”
Chapter Six
Autumn
The soft sound of bells ringing makes me reach out from the quilt and turn it off. It wasn’t like I was sleeping anyway. I turn to the side, grabbing my phone and shutting it off before my arm goes back under the cover where it was. I look around the room I moved back in with my father a couple days after the accident. I haven’t been in for over eight years, eight years and nothing in this room has changed. A house where my mother grew up and we inherited when her parents died. Brady wanted nothing to do with it, mostly because he knew how much I loved this house, so he didn’t care that I moved in as soon as I turned eighteen. A house Waylon hated because it was beneath him to be in something that didn’t have fifteen bedrooms. Another reason I should have hated him, but instead I just ignored it.