Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 79183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“I see how she looks at you,” she whispers. “She loves you, but she doesn’t deserve you, either of you.” Tears stream down Tessa’s face. “I do. I deserve something good after everything I’ve been through.”
“You do.” I lie. “You deserve all the good things.”
“Liar!” she shouts, clenching the steering wheel. “I want to die.”
“NO!” I shout. “Tessa, you have so much to live for. Think about this.”
“I have.” She grits her teeth. “Since the cops left at five this morning. I’ve thought about it a lot, and the only way this should end, our tragic love story, you, me, Quinn… it ends this way.”
“Tessa!” I scream, then make sure my seatbelt’s on.
Quinn starts yelling through the phone, then MB.
I say a quick prayer, then try to grab the steering wheel as the Jeep careens toward the dock by the lake.
She suddenly lets go of the steering wheel, but we’re still going fast. She turns to look at me, her smile sad, her eyes crazed. “It’s all your fault for being perfect.”
The Jeep hits the water so hard that I lunge forward then try to unbuckle my seatbelt; it sticks for a few seconds as we sink.
Chilly blackness covers me as I try to get the window down. It’s past halfway, enough to escape out of, when I turn and see Tessa choking on water. I undo her seatbelt and grab her, trying to pull her out with me.
We’re completely immersed when the Jeep hit’s something hard, jolting me so far into the back of the car that all I see is Tessa’s floating body and darkness.
I start to choke.
Arms wrap around me; they’re not large. I see a woman with dark hair and frown, struggling to hold my breath.
I’m in and out of consciousness as something pulls me from the car and the water.
When I blink up, all I see is sunshine.
And my mom.
I see my mom.
So I know. I must be dead.
She no longer exists.
How sad that in my last moments, I saw the last person who abandoned my perfect life.
I reach for her and feel the stinging sensation of tears forming and falling down my cheeks.
“I still love you,” I whisper before closing my eyes for good.
It’s all my fault, after all, for trying so hard to be what everyone wanted me to be rather than myself.
I should have loved more.
I should have protected my friend before my family.
I should have told MB it was okay, that it wasn’t her fault the very second my dad died.
Should have, should have, should haves suck.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mary-Belle
“He’s still out.” Tears stream down my cheeks. I’ve never been more freaked out than when Quinn pulled me aside and had me listen to the conversation Tessa and Ambrose were having.
I don’t know why, but I immediately called Ambrose’s mom, and weirdly enough, she had just left the airport and was driving home and saw them go screaming by.
She hung up on me.
And that was it.
I could have never known the ramifications of that one phone call. I stare at him in the hospital bed, and I know, I’m convinced, he’s going to blame me again.
It’s going to be my fault again.
His entire perfect life fell apart the minute I walked in that door. The minute I walked into his life—mine began—his ended.
I’m shaking and don’t even realize it. I know I need to go to the house and pack up my things. I haven’t asked yet, but I’m hoping Quinn can at least take me in for a few days while I try to finish school and find a job. I have some money saved from Ambrose’s mom, but this is where it ends.
I don’t need Ambrose telling me that to know it’s true. It’s been eight hours and twenty-nine seconds, thirty—of waiting for Ambrose to wake up post-surgery.
He doesn’t know yet.
I wonder if he’ll feel it though, if he’ll know that his body is different, that he needed something only a mother could give?
Quinn wraps a strong arm around me while we sit on the small couch in the depressing hospital room. He has no idea the thoughts running through my head, the things I’ll have to eventually say out loud, the things I will need to give up.
It’s hard to even look at Ambrose lying lifeless, knowing what I know.
Quinn pulls my legs into his lap and runs his hands through my hair. I don’t have the energy to fight him, and part of me wonders if he knows I need comfort.
It’s soothing. I steal a glance at Ambrose. All he did was try to be a friend; even though that horrible woman didn’t deserve it, his heart was still in the right place.
She literally raped fourteen-year-olds as a senior and has the balls to try to kill him because her life is so horrible?