Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
My phone shatters and I just laugh hysterically, rolling on my back as pain radiates through my body.
“You are done, girl. I will fix you. I have to fix you!” she rattles on as I laugh and hold my aching body. “I’m not going through this again. No I am not.”
She locks the window and then walks to the door and I don’t even try to crawl to freedom. I just curl into a painful ball and listen to what’s left of my sanity lock itself in the hall with my grandmother.
26 years old
“It’s insane how one moment in your life can change everything.” His voice is like a rush of water in my dying, scorched mind.
When I woke up mid-afternoon after a tumultuous night’s sleep, I never expected my day to take this sort of turn.
Kane Jessop is standing on my doormat, his hand pressing against the flat wood that is my door so I can’t slam it in his face. As in my doormat just outside of my apartment where I live.
“Chicago, Illinois,” he comments, a piece of gum rolling around his mouth. I always found the way he chewed gum so attractive, the way his perfectly shaped lips move and his cheeks hollow slightly. “Didn’t you say Minneapolis? St Paul to be exact? A well-rehearsed fuckin’ lie I bet.”
My mouth opens and closes. I’m so dumbfounded I don’t know how to react. “What?”
“What?” He laughs humorlessly, his blue eyes dangerous with madness. “All you can say is what?”
“I’m sorry, I’m completely fuckin’ caught off guard here Kane. It’s been three weeks since I left, I never expected to see you again.”
“Yeah, me neither, but here I am.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he asks incredulously. “Because you fuckin’ ran again, didn’t even give me time to cool down. And then…” He steps inside, backing me up into my apartment. He grabs my elbow, eyes blazing, heart hammering so loudly I can hear it battling my own for decibel dominance. “And then I find out, straight from the mouth of your boyfriend…”
I wet my lips, holding his eyes, petrified because this isn’t happening, or it is happening. I don’t know. Am I having a nightmare?
He is seething, his words are low and clipped. “That you didn’t leave me for him at all because guess what, Immy, HE’S FUCKING GAY AND HE ALWAYS FUCKING HAS BEEN!”
My heart sinks into my stomach, crawls out my ass and hops on the nearest shuttle to outer space. “He told you.”
“Yeah he fucking told me. Said you came home a mess, said we got things to deal with, said he feels bad for betraying you but he’s worried you might do somethin’ stupid like try to kill yourself again.”
It’s bad because I had thought about it, it had crossed my mind. Death just seems so much simpler than this. But I wouldn’t, not again. I’m not that far gone in my mind, not anymore.
“What does it matter, Kane?”
“What does your life matter?” he asks, wrapping my hair around his hand. “Is that what you’re asking?”
“Let me go.”
“No.” He yanks me closer, putting us chest to chest and my nipples tighten immediately. I’m only wearing a satin shift that stops before my knees and a matching nightgown. I wasn’t expecting company today and I’m not at work until tomorrow. “Marshall seems to think you’ve got something to tell me. And if it’s not that you left me for another man then I’m wrackin’ my brain trying to figure it out.” He stares me down. “Did you just stop lovin’ me? Because of how I was and what I did?”
I don’t answer, I just stare at him dumbfounded, feeling betrayed by Marshall and overwhelmed by Kane’s presence.
“Don’t ask me,” I finally whisper. “Don’t make me tell you.”
“Tell me what?” He shakes me slightly and holds me tighter. “Tell me what?”
I pull away, slipping out of his hold and I think he senses my need for a moment because he gives me it, he lets me out of his grasp despite the fact he could so easily pull me back. “You’ve travelled a long way, Kane. Do you want a coffee?”
“Would love a coffee,” he bites out, his impatience clear.
“Good, there’s a Starbucks just down the road, make yourself comfortable there.”
Growling a sound of frustration he pounces on me, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “Told you I wouldn’t pin you, I fuckin’ lied.”
“Yeah I got that when you tampered with my car.”
He chuckles, a genuine sound in this moment of absolute madness and sorrow.
We stay like this, suspended for a moment, me tense in his warm arms that still make me feel safe despite everything.
When he realizes I’m not going to talk, he begins, “Never moved on, Immy.”
I inhale sharply and shut my eyes.
“Fucked a lot, but never found that connection with anyone else. I’m man enough to admit that shit to you, man enough to tell you everything you need to hear. But you gotta be strong enough to give me the truth, babe. You loved me. You ain’t moved on either. Marshall told me you exist, you don’t live. But the girl I remember fuckin’ lived, she didn’t just exist.”