Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
I’d never felt that kind of fear before. The fear of rejection. Not like I did that night and I know why: it’s because I’d never put my heart out there for anyone to take.
I was very much aware that Evan had every piece of me. Unless he didn’t want me. In which case, I’d be broken and I didn’t know how I’d recover.
The thought consumed me the night he brought me to his family home. I was sure his family wouldn’t like me. It’d been so long since I’d been with a family for dinner. I used to go to my friend Marissa’s when I was in high school. But that’s not the same. Not at all. It was also a rarity that I accepted Marissa’s parents’ offer for dinner.
When you lose your parents at fifteen, people tend to look at you as though they’ve never seen anything sadder. I’d rather be alone than deal with that.
So I was, until Evan. And he didn’t come on his own, he had a family that
“had to meet me.”
My back rests against the desk chair as my gaze lingers on the photograph. I had it printed in black and white. It’s the four of us on the sofa in his family home’s living room. It’s funny how I can see the colors of the sofa so clearly, the faded plaid, even though there isn’t any color in the picture that hangs on my wall.
All four of us are smiling. His mother insisted on taking the photo. Just as she’d insisted he bring me that night.
It’s only now that I can remember how Evan’s father looked at her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that’s because they hadn’t told us that she was sick.
I guess in some ways it was the last photograph. If that isn’t accepting someone into your family, I don’t know what is.
I have to hold back the prick of tears as I think of her. I only met Marie a handful of times. The dinner was the second. The third was after she’d told Evan; she didn’t have a choice, seeing as how she had to be hospitalized. The last time I saw her was at the funeral.
I may not know when I fell in love with him, but I think I know the moment he fell in love with me. The moment a part of his heart died and he needed something, or someone, to fill it. Maybe I got lucky that it was me. Or maybe it was a curse.
I roll my eyes, hating that I’m stuck in the past because I can’t move ahead with the future.
Maybe we weren’t really meant to be. Maybe it was never the type of love that’s meant to keep people together. Just the type of love when you feel compelled to give someone compassion.
Are there types of love? I find myself leaving the question as a comment on the book and then deleting it.
If there are, then maybe Evan’s love is the stubborn kind. He’s not so stubborn that he’ll stay this weekend, though. Come Friday he’ll be gone again. Maybe it’s a different kind of love then …
It’s only when I hear the bedroom door shut that I finally look back at the manuscript and email the editor back. I need more time before I can give feedback on any of these to the author and I’m ready to fall asleep in the corner chair, or any place I can where Evan will leave me alone.
I need more time for so much more. I need time and a clear head to move forward with my own life. I need someone to tell me I’m not walking away from the only man who will ever love me, but there’s no email I can write for that unfortunate request.
Evan
If I could focus on the hate and leave her all alone,
I’d be able to move forward, if only I had known.
I can’t speak the truth, I don’t want to make it real,
I can’t stand what I’ve done or what it makes me feel.
Regret will settle in my chest and suffocate the day.
If only I could make it right, if only there was a way.
“It’s good to see New York again,” James says as I walk into his office on Greene Street in lower Manhattan.
Even as he speaks, he stares out the office window. It’s an impressive eight-by-eight-foot picture window, making the view seem like it’s not quite real.
I don’t return his sentiment. I’m fucking miserable regardless of the scenery or location. I want to drop to my knees and confess everything to Kat. The weight of it all is burying me. I think she’d forgive me. I can see it in her eyes that she wants to accept anything I’m willing to divulge. I could tell her almost everything and I think she’d let me stay.