Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77236 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77236 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
You’d think that exposure would lessen her anxiety. And this was Miami. She was exposed to everything on a daily basis.
But, nope.
The more she saw these things, the more they seemed to freak her out.
As I walked her back to our apartment, I was starting to seriously wonder if her vet was right about needing to medicate her.
“Avoidance isn’t treatment, Siana,” she’d told me, and some part of me wondered if she knew it was my own personal method of treating my own anxieties. By completely staying away from triggers.
“Bad walk?” my neighbor asked as we walked down our hallway toward our apartment. I could feel my posture slump, and Frida seemed similarly worn down by the whole excursion.
“Tandem bicycle,” I told him with a big sigh as he reached out toward Frida. It was always a fifty-fifty chance of Frida letting Kylo touch her.
This time, she did, but she wasn’t wagging to encourage more of it.
“You’re a fucking mess, dog,” he told her.
She takes after her mother, I added silently.
He probably thought that too, but he said nothing.
When it came to having neighbors, you wouldn’t think that the six-foot-four, heavily tattooed guy with “bad news” written all over him, someone who had shady people coming and going at all hours of the night, would be comforting.
Yet, I liked Kylo. He was infinitely better than the older lady who lived there before him. Someone who always wanted to drop over uninvited, forcing her way into my apartment, and then talking endlessly about how big of screw-ups her grandkids were.
As a screwed-up grandkid myself, you could say I was relieved to see her moving out with her new boyfriend.
Kylo minded his own business.
He never came over.
And he only ever felt the need to exchange a handful of words with me when we were in the hall or elevator together.
Was he very likely some shady criminal?
Oh, heck yes.
But I could excuse that when he left me alone.
“Catch you around,” Kylo said, jerking his chin up at me, then taking long-legged strides toward the elevator.
“It’s okay,” I cooed at Frida as I removed her leash, and watched her beeline for her big inner tube sized fluffy bed in the corner near the sliding doors to the small balcony, grabbing her stuffed Golden Retriever, and curling around him.
It was the first time I could release my held breath as I looked around my apartment.
When you spent nearly all of your time in a space, I felt it was important to really put your stamp on it. Security deposit be damned.
The walls were all painted a light blue. As were the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves I’d managed to put together, move into position, and paint myself. My couch was one of my most prized possessions. It was a blush pink velvet oversized thing covered in several mismatched pink patterned pillows. The wall behind the couch was covered in a gallery wall of various prints from artists I found online, and mixed frames.
Maximalist, for sure, but in a cozy way.
Or, at least, it felt that way to me.
It, and I quote, gave my mother “instant migraines” when she visited.
In my humble opinion, she only had herself to blame for my very loud, colorful tastes, and adoration of all trinkets and personal touches.
My mom was a minimalist who thought that anything darker than the shade of “bisque” was tacky.
It had been a sad beige life until I was twenty.
I made up for lost time with my colorful style.
The kitchen was more of the same, with cabinets I’d painted pink, and colorful peel and stick backsplash tiles.
My bedroom, in my mother’s estimation, was my greatest design sin. With its elegant trim squares I’d put up myself, but had “ruined” by painting the entire room magenta. Ceiling included.
“What man is ever going to want to sleep here?” she’d asked, as if having a man in my bed was my ultimate life goal.
I could barely talk to men.
Having one in my bed was downright laughable.
It was also hypocritical coming from a woman who’d been single her entire adult life after divorcing my father when I’d been two.
Maybe she thought a man, like a dog, might “fix” me. Who knows.
I was just glad I was a solid six months away from my next visit from her.
Was that why I’d moved all the way from Connecticut to Florida? Yes, absolutely. Even if I’d literally cried the entire drive down here because I sucked at driving on busy roads, and that was pretty much all there’d been on the drive here.
“Alright. Let’s see what we have here,” I said to Frida, who was staring out the balcony doors, likely watching the seagulls. Which were the absolute bane of her existence. It was a long story.
I sliced open the top box, pulling out a pair of high-heel shoes I’d added to a wishlist ages ago. I didn’t even know what shoes were on there anymore. I’d easily added over a hundred pairs.