Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
I slam my head back against the headrest, muttering a curse as I stare out at the house. The lights are on in a bedroom upstairs—her room. After a moment, I see a shadow shift in front of the window and sit up straight.
It's her.
Fuck.
My breath stalls in my throat as I watch her pace back and forth across her bedroom. Even from here, I feel her restlessness, her anxiety. My goddamn feet tap against the floorboard, desperate to go to her. To hold her like I always did when she was restless or anxious about something.
But…I fucking can't. Not yet.
Cash said there are things I don't know. Important things.
What? I don't know, but I need to find out. Because if I'm waging war against her goddamn father, I need every weapon I can get. I'm not just taking her back. I'm taking the motherfucker down.
I'm still sitting right fucking there when the sun comes up. I tried to leave after Mina's light went out around three in the morning, but I couldn't pull myself away. No part of me wanted to go.
So I just fucking…sat. All goddamn night.
I'm still sitting when her light clicks on. Just staring at the house, replaying every single memory I have of her. She thinks I left her, and in a way, she's right. I decided to go that day. Something told me not to do it, but I went anyway. And I didn't willingly spend the last six years away from her. But I forgot her. How the fuck do I blame her for hating me when part of me hates me for it too? You aren't supposed to be able to forget a love like this. And yet…I did.
All this time, I've wondered what unforgivable sin I committed, what I did to deserve to have everything ripped away. That right there is it. I forgot her. I let her memory get lost in the fog, destroyed by some goddamn medical phenomenon no one even fully understands. Her father, his henchmen, and my own damn mind stole her from me. And I couldn't pull her memories out of the void. I wasn't strong enough.
All I had were glimmers, and it wasn't enough. I should have fought harder, killed and maimed if that's what it took. Instead, I hopped back up on that goddamn stage like a lost little boy, and hoped she'd find me. She needed me, cried for me, and I didn't even remember her.
If she ever forgives me, I'm not so sure I'll be able to forgive myself.
"Mommy, hurry up!"
I jolt upright, gripping the steering wheel as a little girl bursts out of the house, a backpack bouncing on her back. Bright red hair curls around her cherubic face…a face so fucking much like Mina's, it's unreal.
"I'm gonna be late!"
"Don't rush me, Brinley Grace!" Mina shouts back, appearing in the doorway, dressed in a white blouse and A-line skirt. She looks exhausted, like she didn't sleep at all. But standing next to her daughter…fuck. There's no mistaking that the little girl is hers.
Which means…
The day I left, I thought she might be…I hoped she was…
"No," I whisper, an agonized, pained sound.
Oh, God, no.
That little girl is mine.
This is what Cash meant by things I didn't know. I have a goddamn daughter. My wife has been raising my little girl alone. She was pregnant alone. Sick alone. She went through labor alone. Cried alone. She's done it all. Alone. And she did it thinking I was dead. She raised that little girl on her own because I couldn't fucking remember her.
How the fuck am I ever going to fix this?
Where do I even start making this better?
I didn't just destroy her life when I left that day. I destroyed both of their lives. I left both of them. I didn't fucking mean to do it. Christ, I would have crawled through hell to get back to them. But I didn't fucking know.
I watch, tears running down my cheeks, as my wife bundles my baby girl into her car, both oblivious that I'm there, watching.
I want to go to them, throw myself on my fucking knees and beg for forgiveness. But I don't even know what our daughter knows about me. If I go out there now, introduce myself as her daddy, I may very well traumatize her for life. And I'm guessing she has plenty of trauma already. Mina has already had so goddamn much taken from her. So has our daughter. I owe them more than my own selfish desire to be close to them right now.
If I force myself into their life, I may break it wide open all over again. I have to get this right. Because if I don't…I may lose them both for good. And I can't do that.