Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Because it was the very house that Mina and I had dreamed about.
At night, we’d take walks together and tell each other our hopes and dreams.
***
“When we have the money, I want a house with a wraparound porch.” Mina looked up at me. “I want it to be old. Not new. I want it to have those old creaks and groans as you walk through the house. I want it to have a root cellar and for it to need some work to fix it up.” She smiled. “I want to pull up the carpet with you and find out that there’s beautiful hardwood floors underneath.”
She smiled at me, and I squeezed her hand lightly.
She let go of my hand and reached for it.
Knowing what she wanted, I let her guide my hand to her belly, and I grinned when I felt our baby inside of her, likely doing somersaults.
“That feels so weird,” I said as I pushed down. “Is that her head or her ass?”
She snickered.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can never tell.”
I felt something sharp and pointy. “That has to be an elbow.”
She shrugged. “Heels and elbows feel a lot alike. The doctor can always tell me where and what she’s doing inside of me, and I’m all over here trying to decide if what I’m feeling is her head or her butt.”
I grinned.
“Back to this house you want,” I said. “I think we could afford an old place, but it won’t have everything you want on it.”
She pursed her lips. “I want the wraparound porch to overlook a pond or a lake.”
I raised my brows at her. “That, I really can’t afford.”
She shrugged. “We can put that in after, but I bet it would look way better if it were there already.”
It would.
I nodded.
“What else?”
“I want it to have those glass door knobs that old houses have, and skeleton keys that go to each door, even the attic.”
I grinned.
“And a big red barn that looks older than the house.”
I just smiled. Anything that Mina wanted, Mina got.
***
She walked inside, and didn’t stop until she was standing in the middle of the living room.
I’d done nothing to the place since I’d bought it over four years ago. The only thing I’d done was maintain it as it was, but made zero changes to it.
This was our dream. This was the house that we’d wanted to fix up together, and I would be damned if I did anything to it without her.
“I made a promise to myself a long time ago,” she said, her voice heavy with grief. “To God. To anyone that would listen.”
I swallowed thickly, not sure that I wanted to hear what she had to say.
“What?”
“That if I ever got another chance…if you came back to me some way, that I wouldn’t squander it. I wouldn’t scream. I wouldn’t yell. I wouldn’t question. I wouldn’t hate. I’d love you. I’d love you for every single second that you were gone. I’d hug you. Kiss you. Never let go.” She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I know you. I…that day at the baseball park…you smelled like you.”
I swallowed.
“I’ve felt you. For a hell of a lot longer than when I first saw you at the baseball park,” she whispered so quietly that I could barely hear her words. “I’d look outside at night and imagine you there.”
“I was there.”
“I’d look over at one of Sienna’s school functions, thinking that I felt your gaze on me…”
“I was at every single one.”
She closed her eyes at the raw emotion in my voice.
“Dentist appointments. Doctors. Anything and everything. Jesus, I’ve felt you everywhere.”
“I was.”
The tears hadn’t dried up, and her entire neck was soaked as they ran unencumbered down her throat.
“I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you, but I don’t hate you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I made this promise and now I want to break it.”
“Then break it, baby.”
My words seemed to open some sort of dam that was holding those swirling emotions inside, and the moment that I gave her freedom to break her promise, she screamed.
She screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
“I’ve been dying without you!”
My throat was clogged with unshed tears.
“I prayed that you would come back to us. I was at your funeral!”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“I contemplated suicide.”
My body froze.
I hadn’t known that. It hadn’t even occurred to me because of Sienna. Mina would never do that to Sienna.
“But then I thought of your baby, all alone in this world, and couldn’t do it.”
I wanted to touch her. To bring her into my arms. To do anything to make the pain that was on her face go away.
But each time I started to move, she screamed. “Stay away!”
I stayed away.
I planted my feet and rooted myself to the spot as I watched her break. I watched her break her promise, and I watched her heart tear apart all over again.