Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
They ignore me and keep fighting, each landing his fair share of blows. My body is still shaking, although I don’t think it has anything to do with the struggle it was to use a walker. It has more to do with what’s going on right in front of me—with my son in the next room.
I go to stand up, realizing the walker is still over where Jake carried me from. I lean on the armrest of the couch and force my weak legs to take my weight. I watch as Jake has Jeff down. He’s hitting him continually, and I yell for him to stop again, desperate to end this.
“Jake! Stop it!” I cry, tears stinging my eyes. “Stop it!”
“Stop hurting, Jeff! He’s back and he loves us! You’re going to make him go away again!” Lennon yells, storming into the room. Jake freezes mid punch, and it would take someone completely blind not to see the look of pain on his face.
“Buddy—”
“I’m not your buddy. You hurt my Jeff. I hate you!” Lennon yells. Lennon dives down to the floor, hurling his body on to Jeff. Jeff holds him, blood trickling from his nose, his knuckles scraped from the hits he delivered. Jake holds his head down, and the pain comes off him in waves. I hate it. I caused all this by keeping secrets and hurting the men in front of me.
“Jake,” I whisper. He looks at me, his eyes overly bright.
“I can’t,” he chokes out. Without another word and only a longing glance at his son, Jake walks out of the room. I manage to remain standing until I hear the door slam shut. Then, I slink back down onto the cushions.
“Lennon, go to your room,” I demand. My son looks up at me, his heart in his eyes. Right now, the look on his face is so much like his father’s it hurts.
“I want to stay with Jeff.”
“You don’t talk to people the way you did to Jake—”
“He was hurting Jeff,” he huffs back.
“Sometimes, that happens with adults, even when it shouldn’t, but Jake has been too good to you for you to say those things to him. What have I always told you?”
“That we aren’t supposed to hate anyone,” he whispers as Jeff stands up and Lennon does the same, shifting to stand by Jeff’s side.
“Go to your room. I’ll tuck you in after Jeff and I talk.”
“But, Mom—”
“Go, Lennon.”
“You better go, Lenny. I’ll be around again, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
“This is stupid,” Lennon pouts, stomping out after giving me a mean look.
Jeff looks at me, rubbing his rapidly bruising jaw. My gaze moves up to my mother.
“I’ll just let you two talk. If you need me…”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She leaves, and suddenly I’m alone with the man I thought I was going to marry and spend the rest of my life with not so long ago. That seems like a lifetime ago. He’s like a stranger to me and I don’t even know what to say to him…
CHAPTER 2
Katie
“What gives you the right to waltz in here after giving me nothing but silence? You hurt not only me but my son, Jeff, and now, you just show up like you have authority to question what I’m doing?”
“The right? How about the fact that my fucking brother waltzed in and ruined our chance for happiness once again? Jesus, I come home to find you all just happy as can be, Katie. Did I mean so fucking little to you?”
The man in front of me is not the Jeff I’ve always known. This Jeff is emotional. He’s angry in a way I’ve never seen. I can’t say it is directed at me, but it is jarring to see this side of him after years of thinking I knew everything about him.
“Did you tell Jake about Lennon four years ago, Jeff?” I whisper.
The question hurts. It burns in the pit of my stomach. This man has stood by me through so much. The trust I have in him is akin to the belief I have in my grandmother. That’s how deep it goes. The mere thought that after all this time I’m wrong about Jeff scares me. It terrifies me.
“What?” he asks, looking like I slapped him.
“Jake said he never knew about Lennon until you and I were getting married. That can’t be true, can it, Jeff? You promised me you told him all those years ago when you wouldn’t let me be the one. You wanted to handle it. You said you understood that I wasn’t ready to move forward, that I still had to deal with the past. I know I was weak, and I let you, but you did tell him, didn’t you?”
“Katie—”
That burning sensation inside me rises into my chest, growing in intensity.