Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 140742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
“Josslyn! Josslyn! Get away! Leave!” the man says in guttural moans.
My ankle rolls when I step on an uneven surface, and my foot gets caught on the next. My hands and knees break my fall and I look around in the dark, trying to figure out what’s beneath me. I push myself into a crouch and realize it’s rope. Manila rope, like the kind my father had in his garage. Like the kind he used…
Something soft touches my shoulder and my eyes fly open in a gasp.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Finn says, sitting down beside me, as he runs a hand over my hair and lifts the silk scarf I had covering it.
It must have come undone while I was tossing and turning. God, that dream. I shiver thinking about it.
“Another bad dream?” he asks.
I nod and grab his forearm, hugging it against my chest. For the last two nights, my sleep has been interrupted by multiple nightmares. I think I’ve only slept five hours max, and when I’ve napped, I’m right back in the nightmares, so I stopped trying. Thankfully, Finn has had home games and been sleeping beside me, but he leaves today. My eyes swing to the clock. He leaves right now, actually. Tears fill my eyes and I squeeze his forearm tighter. He pulls it away and lifts the covers so he can get in bed and wrap his arm around me. His cologne envelops me and I shut my eyes, trying to pretend we can stay like this the rest of the day, but he’s already wearing his dress shirt and slacks.
“What was it about this time?” he asks against my hair.
“I was running in a maze and tripped over ropes like the one my dad used…” the words get caught in my throat, and I lick my dry lips as he squeezes me tighter and links our fingers together.
“Maybe I should stay,” he says for the hundredth time.
“You can’t. You know you can’t.” Tears build in my eyes and I bring up our joined hands to kiss his rough knuckles.
His heavy exhale ripples through my hair and tickles my ear. I don’t know all the rules of hockey, but I know if his coach puts him in the lineup and he doesn’t show up, they’d be one player short, which would lead to major consequences for Finn. For a year after my dad’s death, every time I closed my eyes, I relived the way he looked when I found him—his eyes black and bulging out of their sockets, his swollen tongue sticking out of his mouth, the vivid rope marks around his neck, the feces. My eyes squeeze shut as I try to push the image away now.
Somehow, I stopped having nightmares about it, but the rope continued to haunt me. Maybe because in the beginning, I wanted so badly to believe it wasn’t suicide. There was no way my father would take his life. No way he would abandon me like that. No way a rope could hold the weight of such a large man.
After years of not having them, after I’d heard Mallory was involved in some kind of rope play, the nightmares had come back. Every time I had closed my eyes, my father's face had been replaced by hers. Things between me and Tate had been very rocky by then, but after she died, he was there for me. My memories look different when I think back on it now.
He’d been clingy in the aftermath, but not even a week later, he was telling me that I needed to move on. He’d suggested therapy, which I went to, and when that didn’t magically take away my nightmares or lift my depression, he suggested everything from soothing teas to drugs. Everything became an argument, and every argument turned into a screaming match until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and broke things off.
Finn’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he sighs again but doesn’t move.
“You have to go,” I say, my voice a broken whisper.
“I can’t, Josie,” he murmurs against my hair. “I can’t leave you like this.”
“I’ll be fine. They’re just nightmares. It’s nothing I haven’t already been through.”
His arms loosen as he pulls back to look at me. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“You didn’t have me before,” he says and kisses my cheek. “Invite Olivia to stay here with you while I’m gone.”
My brows rise. “That’s a big switch for someone who hates having her over.”
“I can only handle people in small doses.” He smirks. “Except for you, of course.”
“I don’t know how you play a team sport at a professional level.”
“It’s work,” he says. “And my teammates are alright.”
“Would you want to have them over for dinner one night?”
His face pulls, but he says, “Not particularly, but I guess we can.”