Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Because Jasper doesn’t feel the same. Because he would never let himself even if he did.
But seeing it made the need inside me grow.
I really was bisexual, and I was so fucking in love with Jasper that it hurt…that it was killing me, and if I didn’t find a way to make this go away, I wouldn’t ever recover.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jasper
Everything was a whole damn mess, and I still couldn’t make sense of how we’d gotten here.
First, it was all about Aunt Carrie being hurt, and then Sammy Joe was gay and in love with a man who’d maybe killed his ex-boyfriend, and my mama and daddy were losing their damn minds.
I loved Mama, but she liked to be in control, liked to know everything, and this had hit her out of left field. Sammy’s sexuality was something she hadn’t been let in on, and Molly, whom she thought of as part of our family, had lied to her and wasn’t with Sammy at all.
Dad was pissed, threw ugly names around that made acid burn through my gut and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It hit me hard, which was confusing. I didn’t think of myself as a hateful person—people should be able to live their lives authentically and all—but I’d never thought a lot about other people’s sexuality outside of angry things I’d heard Dad or others say, so I was taken aback by how strongly his words made my throat tighten and my stomach sick.
Sutton and I had left the hospital when we knew Carrie was going to be okay. Dad too. He rode back with us so Mama could keep the car, and all the way home, he kept harping on about Sammy Joe and Emerson, saying things that made my skin crawl. Things you shouldn’t say about anyone, but especially not family. Wasn’t family supposed to be the most important thing in this world?
Every time I peeked at Sutton in the rearview mirror, he wasn’t looking at me. I’d wait, gaze locked, pleading with him to glance my way, but he never did. Why wouldn’t he look at me? We were always on the same wavelength, could speak to each other without words, and it helped me make sense of things. I was out of sorts without it. I couldn’t say what I expected him to do about how shaken up I was, but I needed something from him.
“Don’t know what that kid is thinkin’. It’s because his daddy wasn’t around. We shoulda taken him in ourselves,” Dad growled. Because living with us would have made Sammy less gay? It didn’t work that way. I was still trying to come to terms with what had happened myself, but that much I knew.
Sutton didn’t speak the whole drive, and when we got home, he went straight to his room. I wanted to go in to talk to him, but couldn’t make myself do it, didn’t know what I wanted to say or why I felt…a million miles away from him. I’d never experienced that before, not with him. It scared me, and I wanted to cling to him, hold tight and make sense of it all, but that was unnerving too. It wasn’t the kind of reaction I should have.
I spent the afternoon pacing. Sutton came out eventually, but we were both fairly quiet as we had dinner and watched a show together. Something was off. Was he pissed at me? Had I done something wrong? I went to bed with a knot in my gut, thinking about Sutton and Sammy Joe and everything that had gone down.
Mama came home the next day, and went on and on about Sammy not being himself and how that man had gotten his claws in him, messed around with Sammy’s head.
I told her, “When I think about it, I’m not all that surprised about Sammy. That he’s gay. And nothing’s changed about him.” He was just Sammy. Like I said, I was thrown in a lot of ways and still sorting through the past couple of days, but hell, even I knew he was just Sammy and hadn’t suddenly morphed into a different person.
“That man is dangerous. That’s my biggest worry. I don’t trust him. He’s already hurt one young man, and Sammy is impressionable. He wasn’t…well, he was happy with Molly before that man came around.”
Not according to Sammy and Molly, he wasn’t, but I didn’t tell her that. I knew how she was when she got like this. She wouldn’t hear a damn thing I said.
The next few days went by just as messy as the ones before them. Aunt Carrie was gonna be okay. Apparently, after she was released from the hospital, Molly was taking her to Tennessee for an inpatient rehab program. I heard Mama on the phone with her, and Aunt Carrie told her Emerson was paying for it. According to Mama, he was trying to buy his way into the family.