Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 143633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 718(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 718(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
I raised my eyebrows. “Running away?!”
“Yes, running away. She was running back to her mother, wasn’t she? Where did you find her? On her way back from high school?”
“No. Of course not! And she wasn’t running, I can assure you!”
“Let’s see if the rehab centre agrees with you. Just get your things and come with me. I have the car outside. We’ll get you booked in, and get your assessment done, and when you’re up to it, after some treatment, we’ll get Grace and Ryan to see you, and we can work things through, slowly, and they’ll be there. We’re all behind you, no matter how fucked up things have been.”
I was shaking my head as I finally poured our coffees.
“Well?” he pushed. “Are you coming? I don’t want a fucking drink with you, Jules, I want you in the car on the way out of this shit tip. I have no idea why you even came here. It’s a disgusting place. I’d have thought you’d have at least picked somewhere vaguely habitable for you to end your days in.”
“It’s considerably more habitable than it was when I moved in here, believe me. I keyed in a random postcode actually, and it came up with Worcester. I chose the cheapest place that I could find.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, I swear. Will you trust me, please? Trust me that you’re ill?”
I sighed at that. I thought my words in the letter had been clear, and real, and conveyed the truth, but the truth can always be misread, and twisted.
I couldn’t blame him, either. They wanted excuses, and reasons beyond my control, clutching at straws at how I could be rehabilitated and turned back into the facade of Julian they’d all come to know. But I didn’t want that. Not now. Maybe a few months ago, but not now.
“I’m not a predator,” I told him, calmly. “My alcohol addiction is easing off, and yes, I’ll happily take therapy for that, but when it comes to upping and leaving and checking myself into rehab for depravity with women, I’m sorry, but that isn’t an illness. Not for me. My past is full of mistakes on that front, and I take full responsibility for them, but I am not sick. I am perfectly aware of what I am doing, and always have been. My crimes have been morality based, in the fact that I acted very out of turn, but I am not a criminal in the eyes of the law.”
I watched his expression turn to rage.
“YOU PREYED ON GRACE’S FRIENDS! BEHIND KAYREYA’S BACK! Your WIFE’S back!”
I didn’t rise to his shouting.
“I fucked plenty of girls behind Katreya’s back, yes, and I shouldn’t have done it. I’m very sorry. It’s a regret I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life, but Katreya and I were estranged, and I didn’t prey on anyone. I fucked them.”
He turned away from me, his hands back in his hair.
“FUCK. JUST –” He fisted his hands as he swung back around. “JULIAN!”
I didn’t have anything to say. I waited until he regained some semblance of calm, and let him continue.
“I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to help. That’s what we need to do for you now. HELP.”
“Thank you. I’m grateful beyond words. And I’ll take that help, and I’ll love that help, and I’ll appreciate that help more than you could ever imagine. But it has to be help in the right areas.”
He looked up at the ceiling. “What you’re really saying is that you won’t stop fucking teenagers.”
My heart pounded. My senses were on riot, wishing to God almighty that he could get so much as a glimpse into my soul.
“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” I told him. “What I’m saying is that I won’t stop loving Rosie.”
His eyes narrowed. “Rosie? The girl downstairs? This denial is all about her?”
“I love Rosie. It’s not denial, it’s the opposite. It’s the truth.”
“You can’t love a teenager!”
“I can love a young woman.”
“As if.” He shook his head. “Fucking hell. She’s just another seedy fixation, like the others. You saw her, you snared her, now you can’t let go of her pussy. Do you scrawl marker pen all over her? Call her derogatory names as you film her on camera?”
“That’s none of your business.”
That did it for him, he stood taller, pointing a finger.
“It is exactly my business, because it says it all. She’s another one of your dirty little treasures, and unless you get therapy, you aren’t going to change at all.”
“You’re wrong,” I told him. “I’ve already changed.”
His lip trembled.
“You haven’t changed, Jules, but we want you to. All of us. Please.”
My legs almost buckled under the weight of turning this down, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie anymore and I couldn’t leave her behind. What is the point of life if people won’t love you as you are, only the person they want you to be?