Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
And I was rushing across my apartment to slide the locks I did have, making a mental note of how much space I had to add additional locks. I’m not saying they would keep him out, but they would make him take longer to get in, which might alert some of the neighbors.
It gave me a chance.
I made a cup of tea with shaking hands before making my way into my bedroom, deciding to skip the look in the mirror, figuring I’d endured just about enough shock for the one day.
Falling into bed, icing various parts of my face in fifteen-minute rotations, I found my mind not wandering back to what had happened with Josh, or how I was going to avoid Wren until I healed since I had no intentions of telling her what had happened, else she go back to him just to spare me.
Nope.
I didn’t think of any of that.
I thought about Salvatore.
And why he hadn’t shown up that night.
That was a whole new kind of pathetic for me.
But he was still the last thought on my mind as I drifted off to sleep as the sun started to come up.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Whitney
Taking a deep breath, I lifted my head and opened my eyes to finally check my reflection.
Once I’d finally passed out the night before, I was out hard and long, only waking up around nine hours later, feeling groggy and in more pain than I’d anticipated.
I’d never really endured much physical violence in my life. I had no frame of reference to what it felt like to be strangled or slammed into hard, unmoving objects.
But if this was what Wren had been through time and time again, there was no end to the well of rage inside of me toward the man who’d done it to her.
Before I’d even gotten out of bed, I reached in my nightstand for my trusty bottle of Ibuprofen that I kept there for the intense foot and back pain I’d felt the first few weeks of being on my feet serving tables.
I gave that a good half hour to kick in before I finally ventured into my bathroom.
I even brushed my teeth and showered before checking myself out, some part of me not wanting to accept the reflection of a beaten woman looking back at me.
But whether I liked that or not, that was what I was. There was no use trying to hide from it.
“Shit,” I whispered to myself, my throat still screaming in pain despite the pills, making me cringe at the idea of talking to customers all night long.
It was as bad as I’d expected.
It was a family trait, I’m afraid, that we bruised like peaches. I was constantly finding ones on my skin and trying to recall doing anything to cause them.
So if I bruised from a little bump with the doorway or desk, you can imagine how vivid the colors were that I was confronted with in the mirror.
One eye had a big old black eye, smatters of purple and blue grazing my cheekbone and going around the outside of my eye. There was a bruise running along the side of my face from the door as well.
There was a bracelet bruise around my wrist from him grabbing me and pinning me.
Then, of course, there were the little finger-shaped bands running across my throat from him strangling me.
I’d gotten good with the bruise makeup, but even I was having some doubts in my ability to cover them up completely.
But I’d just have to try my best.
With that in mind, I found the bag with all the makeup, most of it created to cover up tattoos for important events. It was thick and felt like a blanket over my face, strangling my pores, and making me immediately uncomfortable.
Better uncomfortable than a thousand questions and sad looks from customers and coworkers, though, I guess.
With my throat screaming, I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything, just sipping some tea and promising myself to get some soup at work to sip on.
“Hey girlie!” Danny, my favorite grumpy regular greeted me a few hours later.
“Hey you.”
“Hey now… you’re not sick are you?” he asked, leaning back in his booth as if that could protect him from my germs even if I were.
“No, no. I, ah, I did karaoke last night,” I lied. “Went a little too high on those high notes,” I said, rolling my eyes at myself.
I hadn’t been a good liar earlier in my life.
But having to tell half-truths to my sister to protect her, well, it sort of honed my skills.
“That’s why you look off,” he said, old and without a filter, just what I loved about him. “Your face is all weird.”
“That would be makeup,” I told him. “To hide how pale I am from not getting enough sleep. So can I get you your usual?” I asked, trying to be friendly, but also limit how much I needed to talk.