Total pages in book: 225
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
My phone chimes with an incoming text so I pull it out of my back pocket.
Mom: Hope everything is well with you. Just wanted to say hello and ask if you and Derek would like to come over for dinner. I know his parents’ party is this Saturday so this Sunday you’ll likely be tired but I was thinking maybe next Sunday. Or even Saturday? If Saturday we could have game night and you two could sleep over if you like.
I need to put my phone down because my hands are trembling. I’m about to burst into tears. I take a few deep breaths, my sinuses burning.
I read the text message again.
We haven’t had a game night since Bryan got really sick. It was a Turner tradition most Saturday nights. We would pull out board games and order pizza or pick up fast food. Make sundaes. When we were small, we’d play Snakes and Ladders. Trouble. CandyLand. Sometimes we’d play Pictionary. Sometimes we’d play cards. Or Monopoly or The Game of Life once we got a little older. None of us has even suggested a game night since Bryan died. Because it was one of his favorite things.
I’m not going to cry. I’m not I’m not I’m not.
“You okay?” I hear.
Grace has walked back in, seeing me braced with both hands on the counter, taking breath after breath. I shake it off and straighten up.
“How do you take your coffee?”
“Black with stevia is good if you have it, but… the coffee isn’t on yet, so… are you sure you’re okay?”
The coffee pot is sitting in the sink overflowing with the still-running water.
I turn the tap off.
I’ll answer my mother in a bit. Once I peel my jaw off the floor, I guess.
“Forget coffee. Let’s sit.” She takes my hand and tugs a little. I let her lead me to the couch on the other side of the kitchen island.
“Talk to me,” she requests once we’re sitting down.
“No offence, Grace, but I don’t even know you.”
“I’m your sister-in-law. We’re family now. I care about my family.”
I shake my head. “Your brother blackmailed me into an ongoing sexual relationship after manipulating me into bed with him and that quickly turned into me being blackmailed into marrying him. Into entering a sacred contract not only in the eyes of the church but also in the eyes of your family, evidently, because divorce is not an option. So… that doesn’t make us family. I’m not trying to be mean. Maybe under different circumstances we could be genuine friends, but–”
“We can be friends anyway,” Grace says. “Just because things are complicated with you and my brother doesn’t mean they have to be with you and me.”
I’m not sure how to respond.
“You need someone to talk to, to ask questions, to get history or Steele insight? I’m your girl.”
She gives me a loaded look.
Is she expecting me to ask questions? To pick her brain for information? I don’t want information. What difference will that make?
“Okay, so you don’t take hints,” she says with humor.
And I’m not in the mood for this, so I rub my eyes, exasperated.
“Chloe, Derek is a complex individual. Nobody gets close. I’m probably the closest, only because I don’t typically respect boundaries.”
I give her a pointed look. She shrugs, looking amused.
My shoulders jiggle with silent laughter.
“You’re sworn to secrecy here as part of this family, okay?”
“I’m not making promises, Grace. Please don’t tell me anybody’s secrets. I can’t deal with that kind of thing right now. I’m on absolute overload, I have been for weeks and-”
“Derek is who he is mostly due to trauma response,” she states, cutting me off, letting me see just how little respect she has for boundaries. “He was kidnapped by someone he trusted. He saw our chauffeur murdered and was taken for ransom. When the time ran out and the kidnapper was getting twitchy, Derek got the kidnapper’s gun and shot him in the head. Just like he’d seen the kidnapper do to our chauffeur. He was eleven, Chloe.”
My throat goes dry. She’s not done talking.
“The child psychologist was already treating him for some severe behavioral issues. He was already a problem child. And I think part of that was because our mom attempted suicide and Derek found her. He tried to help her and was covered in her blood so our Thad blamed Derek for it. He kept saying Derek did something to Mom. But that wasn’t true. Dad sat Thad down and told him Derek had nothing to do with Mom being hurt and going away for a while to get better, but Thad got even more nasty and hard on Derek. Thad was… a lot. And he was a couple of years older than Derek, a lot bigger at that point. When Derek was about ten, he finally snapped and put Thad in the hospital with broken teeth, a concussion, broken ribs. It was extreme. That’s when Derek went into counseling with the child psychologist.”