Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 124451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
I pace across the lawn until it becomes too much, and I force myself to drop down onto the grass. My elbows rest against my knees as my head falls forward. I close my eyes, doing what I can to listen to the soft sounds of the night—the leaves rustling in the breeze, the rumbling of an engine a few streets away, the sound of an owl in the distance. It goes a long way in allowing me to calm myself, or at least I thought it had until Hudson steps through the door.
My head whips around, wide-eyed and panicked. “Is she okay?”
He shrugs his shoulders as he joins me in the grass. “I don’t fucking know,” he mutters, his jaw clenched tight. “She won’t talk to me. She allowed me to stay just long enough to calm down, but then she pushed me away. Said she wanted to be alone.”
I shake my head, digging my nails into my palm. “She’s so fucking stubborn,” I murmur. “She needs to let us in. We can’t help her like this.”
“She’ll come around,” he tells me, his words sounding like a plea of desperation. “She has to.”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “She’s too far gone. We barely just got her back after the first attack, and now this? Before she was only living with the memories, but now she has physical scars as well. Every time she looks in the mirror and sees it staring back at her, she’ll be reminded of him. Every time her fingers brush over her scar and feel it, she’ll think of him. Every fucking time, man. I can’t fix this for her. I can’t make it go away.”
“You think you’re the only one feeling like this?” Hudson throws back at me. “She’s the goddamn love of my life, and I can’t even make her smile. Every fucking night she dreams about what he did to her, and it kills me. I just wish … I wish she could just let me in.”
My head falls forward again, and I let out a heavy breath. “I never should have let her walk away at the track. I should have gone after her.”
“Why’d you even let her go, man?” he pleads. “You should have told her to stay home. I would have stayed with her. I could have protected her here.”
My head snaps up, my brows furrowed with anger. “The fuck? She’s my goddamn sister, not a fucking animal. I don’t let her do anything. She doesn’t need my approval to leave the house if she wants to go out. I’m not her fucking keeper. If you didn’t want her at the track, maybe you should have asked her to fucking stay home.”
“I … no,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not my position to be telling her what she can and can’t be doing.”
“And you think it’s mine?” I demand. “You know damn well had I told her to stay home, she would have found a way to be at that track and made a point of rubbing it in my face.”
He continues shaking his head. “You should have tried.”
“What’s the matter with you? Too fucking scared she’ll push you away if you tell her no? Look at you, Hudson. You’re sitting out here in the fucking grass instead of comforting her inside. She’s already pushing you away, and all you’ve done is cater to her like a fucking love-sick puppy. Grow a pair of fucking balls and stop trying to be her best friend. She’s already got enough of those. She needs a fucking man who’s going to protect her, not a fucking child.”
Anger bursts across his face, and I see the exact moment he decides he’s had enough. His jaw clenches, and he balls his hands into fists. I almost dare him to come at me faster. I fucking need this just as much as he does, and I’ll be damned if I let an opportunity like this slip through my fingers.
Hudson lunges at me, and I almost welcome him with open arms. He may be one of my closest friends, but I’m not above kicking his ass, especially if he wants to start blaming me for the shit Addie is going through. This is on him just as much as it is on me. He could have gone after her when she took off at the track. He could have asked her to stay home. He could have grown a pair and asked to take her out somewhere just the two of them. Yes, I failed to protect her, but so did he.
His fist slams across my jaw, and the momentum throws me back against the grass. Before I can right myself, Hudson is on top of me. His fist comes down again, splitting my brow, and I revel in the sweet punishment, finally able to feel something. “That’s all you’ve got?” I mock, bringing my knee up and slamming it right into the center of his back.