Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
This time, I've lost hope.
They say that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
I’m not sure I agree.
I sit on the same bus I took to Boston. It might even be the same driver. Beside me rests a small bag, containing all of my worldly possessions.
I hated not taking Daisy with me, but I knew it was best to leave her.
I left a note for Marialena, and one for Quinn.
Sergio. God, Sergio. How could you do this?
Maybe in his world, people say things they don’t mean. Maybe in his world, words like I love you are only a means to an end, and not the pinnacle of your heart’s desire.
I can’t help but fall back into my old ways, the mental torture of questioning everything I do. Everything I am.
You were stupid to think that he would ever love you.
You’re already married.
You don't deserve a man like Sergio.
You don't deserve anything.
I can almost hear him talking to me, telling me not to talk to myself this way. He never liked it when I got down on myself, and I have just barely started to learn how to love myself. To deny all the lies I was taught by the fellowship.
But Sergio isn't mine, and he never was. That much is true.
There's nothing to keep me in Boston now. I have the money I need.
I can't stay in a place where I'm not wanted or welcome.
I think about the money that I have sitting in my bank account and comfortably in my wallet. It was supposed to be reassuring. It was the whole purpose of my leaving to begin with, to earn this money I have now.
But there’s no triumph or victory in gaining what I came for. I found and lost everything I needed.
We take a stop at a rest area. I look at the restaurants and gift shops, and I know for the first time in my entire life, I could buy anything I wanted. There's nothing here too expensive for me anymore.
But it doesn't matter. None of it really matters because money can't buy what I really want. I know that now.
Maybe I've always known that.
My belly churns with hunger. I don't remember the last time I ate something, and I realize I probably should do something about that if I'm going to keep my energy up. I walk in a daze to the snack bar and buy a bag of chips and a ginger ale. I hand the cashier a twenty and tell her to keep the change. I just don’t care anymore.
They’re tasteless.
Returning to the bus and navigating down the narrow aisle to my seat, I try to get excited about being back with my sister, but I haven't even begun to unravel the logistics of how that will happen.
First, I have to return to the fellowship. I don't even want to think about what they’ll do to me when they see me.
Maybe I should go in with the police.
What would that entail? Would they even believe me?
No, I don't want to do that. That would mean trials, and litigation, and probably endless questions about my affiliation with the Montavios. I don't want anyone involved in my sister’s business but me.
I think about getting a dog, another one, but this time, a vicious one instead of a little fluff ball like Daisy. Something that will protect me.
But in the end, all I take is myself. Just me. I don't buy a weapon, I don't even buy so much as a stick of gum. There's just me, my money, and my will. But maybe my will means more than I think. I imagine I'm dropped in the middle of the Siberian cold, and that home is ahead of me. I imagine that I have to find my way out of there.
Is this really any different?
We pull up to the bus station, on what feels like the close of the day, but what really is a bookend. My life at the fellowship, long days filled with the hope of getting out, and my life after the fellowship before coming back.
I found myself with Sergio, at the club, with his family. With people who, for the first time in my life, I could call friends. And it felt like that was the only time, the only chapter in this volume of my life… where I really truly lived.
I know it's up to me now. I have to get Starla, and we’ll write our next chapter. I just don't know every word that will take me from one sentence to the next.
It's late at night. Entering the station lobby, I briefly contemplate going to a hotel, formulating a plan.
But if it's dark back at the fellowship, it will be easier for me to sneak in. I look at the clock on the station wall and remember the plan that Starla and I made way back months ago for me to get out. How the guard would take a break by the gate at nine o'clock, and there would be a gap between guards passing, when the elders in the fellowship would have their meeting.