Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
The memory began to flicker, more clearly.
A room. A wall.
Men. A lot of men were there, all standing around like they were waiting for something. They were on edge.
I’d been scared. I hadn’t wanted to be there.
I frowned. “The wall behind my bench had a pattern on it. Wooden stairs.”
His voice went flat. “Yes.”
“That was the morning my mom died?” I was starting to remember. “My dad told me later. She left us, me and Dad, and she went to get drugs—”
“No.” That came out flat. Hard.
I lifted my eyes to his, stilling.
A cruel glint showed from his eyes. The rest of him was back to being encased in stone. “She died the night before. It was the night before your birthday.” He was almost unrelenting now. “They both died that night. Your father showed up the next morning. He offered a deal to my grandfather.”
I felt sick.
My limbs were growing numb.
“The deal struck was that your father would be allowed to keep gambling at our casinos and through our bookies, and he’d always be given time to pay back his debts. He knew his time was running out with us. He made a deal regarding your mother to keep my family off his back.”
No, no. I didn’t—I didn’t like this, whatever he was about to say. I felt it in my gut. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that my mother wanted to get drugs and insisted that your mother come with her. Your mom didn’t want to go during the day because it was your birthday. That’s when they would normally go to my mother’s usual dealer, but because of your birthday, they went to a new dealer the night before. The deal went bad. They were both killed.”
I was frozen.
No—
“The other truth? Your mother never did drugs. My mother did. Your mother was just stupid in trying to be a kind friend, but your father offered to flip the narrative. To say that your mother went to get her own drugs, because she was a drug addict. My mother died in the crossfire trying to save yours. That was what your father offered for his own skin. He offered up your mother’s reputation to my grandfather.”
My eyes were stinging.
My mom?
Those memories of her? They were real?
I shook my head. “Why would he—” I knew why he would do that.
“Your mother was homeless when your father met her.”
I nodded, dazed. I wanted to say that she had people who cared about her, who would know her, but it wasn’t the truth. What he said was true. She had me, only me.
“No grandparents. Your father was an only child. ‘It’s easy to spin another lie. The kid’s already been lied to all her life. Easy as pie.’ That’s what your father said to my grandfather. He laughed about it.”
I was on that bench, sitting. Hugging myself. My dad went inside, and all those giant men moved around to make room for him. They didn’t like him.
I was almost there again, tasting my fear.
They hated my father, but that wasn’t new. I barely registered it, but I had that morning because it felt wrong, not wanting my dad to go inside when normally I knew it was only better when he was away.
Then Ashton came out. They bypassed each other, and the look Ashton gave my father.
He hated him. He wanted to kill him. The sneer. The disdain, and a surge went up in me.
He was cute. So cute.
I didn’t remember what he was wearing that day, just how he looked and how I knew, no matter how old he was, that he had darkness in him.
He could do what I couldn’t, and even back then, I hadn’t wanted to admit what I wanted to do.
That darkness inside of me.
I wanted to be away from my father.
Ashton, this boy going past him, could do that for me.
I knew it then, and that’s why I never forgot him. I couldn’t.
He was the prettiest and cutest boy I’d ever seen. Beautiful black hair that he’d been raking a hand through. Eyes that were so dark I was sure they were black. Eyelashes that framed them that were long and curled perfectly. And even back then, as an eleven-year-old, I knew he would grow up and be mesmerizing.
Which he had been.
Which he was, and that sculpted jawline clenched as he took me in.
“You were my birthday wish,” I whispered.
“What?”
So dumb. “It was my birthday. I saw a cute boy.” I looked at him. “My dad bought me a birthday cupcake afterward, and when I blew out the candle, I wished for you.”
His eyes turned stricken, and then he blinked, and they were back to being cruel. Easy as pie.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
His nostrils flared. “Because I hate my mother, and I hate that everyone thinks she’s a good person when I know the truth.”