Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Short, blond hair with brown eyes, maybe in his midforties. He gave me a curious smile, one I didn’t return, and Pax hurried us out the door and into the frigid day.
The blue sky glowed white overhead. Painted in a cold winter clear. I shivered in the break of it, and Pax urged me forward, guiding me around the side of the building to head back toward the motel room.
Only I stalled out, gulping around the sorrow that possessed me again. Unable to take another step until I addressed it.
His powerful presence covered me from behind.
Almost oppressive in its watch.
I turned to him, trying not to allow the sight of him to punch me in the gut again, trying to rein in everything that I’d felt for him for so long.
But looking at the one who burned like a beacon in your soul and facing them in an entirely different reality was hard to do.
“I have to somehow get in touch with my parents,” I told him, my decision firm. “Let them know I’m safe.”
“Safe, Aria?” Disbelief pinched Pax’s eyes, his coarse voice scraping my flesh.
The energy he emitted crackled as he slowly took a step forward.
A semitruck rumbled by on the road, sending dust billowing through the air. Pax spoke through the scatter of debris. “You’re not safe. None of this is safe. And the only thing calling them will do is make the situation worse.”
He was right. I knew it. But knowing it didn’t matter.
I couldn’t leave my mother in torment.
“I can’t go on, knowing my mom is terrified for me, Pax. I can’t pretend like I don’t know that she can’t function because the only thing she can think about is me. I can’t pretend my brothers and sister aren’t being affected. I can’t.”
Pax edged even closer, speaking around gritted teeth. “You’re running because of them. Because they locked you away because they don’t understand you. They don’t understand you and they never will. You have to let them go.”
His words were harsh. Almost cruel in their delivery. As if it were the only way he could get through to me. But he didn’t understand these pieces of me, either.
“I love them.”
It was simple, and the way his jaw clenched made me sure he didn’t understand.
He’d never experienced it here.
And that nearly killed me, too.
“I can’t just forget them, and you can’t ask me to.”
For the longest time, he stared at me like he wanted to argue.
Finally, he looked to the ground. “Goddamn it, Aria.”
He inhaled through his nose, agitation lighting him up before he pulled the oldest phone I’d ever seen from his coat pocket.
It was bulky and as obsolete as the television in the motel room.
“Here.”
I stared at it like he’d handed me a bomb. I guessed he had.
“Make it fast.”
My hands shook as I dialed my mother’s number, and all the breath left me when she answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
Grief hitched in my throat with the desperate cry that infiltrated the single word: “Mom.” I choked it out. Eighteen years of pain and misunderstanding bled out with it.
“Aria, oh my God, Aria.” She gasped it around sobs.
Tears slipped free of my eyes.
“Oh my God, Aria. Where are you?” she begged. I could tell she was pacing, the phone clutched to her ear.
“I’m safe.”
“Please tell me where you are. I’ll come for you. Whatever trouble you’re in, it’s okay. We can talk and make this right. I promise—”
“I’m not coming home.”
Despair seeped into her voice. “Please, don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”
Agony burned in my chest. “I just wanted to let you know I’m safe. I’m safe. I promise I’m safe. And I want you to know how much I love you. That I understand why you’ve done the things you have, but I also need you to understand that I can’t live under the weight of that any longer.”
“Aria,” she cried.
A commotion clattered through the connection, a crash and the shattering of glass before my father’s voice suddenly came through the line. “Where the hell are you, Aria? Do you understand the kind of trouble you’re in? Whoever you’re with is going to pay the—”
I yelped when the phone was suddenly yanked out of my hand. Pax threw it to the ground and stomped on it with the heel of his boot, crushing it in one swift blow.
My hands flew to my mouth to cover the sob. There was a huge part of me that wanted to gather up the broken pieces and put them back together so I could hear her voice again. The part that wanted to succumb.
Give in.
Because I ached.
I ached for the woman who I knew was on her knees on the floor right then. Weeping for me.
“We have to go.” A dark urgency filled Pax’s tone.
But I couldn’t move. I gaped at the mangled mess that was left of the phone, a cold realization gliding through my veins.