Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
He was teasing. He was being kind. And it was the worst thing he could’ve done.
I couldn’t hold them off anymore. They were slipping, so I turned so he couldn’t see my face and I made my voice like steel, “Forget it. I’ll find it.”
“Hey. Hey.” His hands touched my shoulder.
I pulled away from him, hurrying off. I’d find the fucking stairs myself.
Fuck him.
Fuck this house.
Fuck everything he had gained and I had lost.
Fuck it all.
He still had his shitty parents, and mine—a sob ripped from me. I felt it rising, burning on the way, and I tried to quiet it, but I couldn’t. Stopping right at the stairs going to my section, I couldn’t hold them back anymore, and I couldn’t go any farther myself.
I bent over, right there, at the bottom stairs. My forehead went to my knees. I wrapped my arms around my legs, and I sobbed.
Deep. Guttural. Straight from the soul sobs.
He must’ve let me cry for a few minutes until I felt his hands on my back. “Fucking Christ, Phillips.” But he didn’t sound frustrated, and his hands were gentle. He knelt, his arms moving under me, and he picked me up.
He carried me to my room, going to turn the light on.
“No! Please.”
I couldn’t bear it. It was bad enough he was here, he was hearing me. If he saw evidence of my destruction, too?
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“Okay.” A soft whisper from him.
“I need you to hate me.”
“I will.” He sank down on a chair in the corner, toeing the curtains out of the way so he could see outside his window, and there he held me. “Tomorrow we can go back to hating each other.”
I hiccupped on a sob. “Deal.”
So the rest of the night, he cradled me.
The rest of the night, I cried.
The rest of the night, we didn’t hate each other.
Chapter Fifteen
“Thought you didn’t know Stone Reeves?” That was Joe’s greeting when I called him the next day.
I frowned, sitting in Stone’s living room. Alone. He’d gone in earlier for his game. “I don’t.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right. The dude himself stopped in this morning, told me about what’s going on with you and asking if I’d hold a job for you.”
I did nothing. I didn’t know if I should get mad or breathe easier. Guess it’d depend on his answer.
“So are you?”
“Fuck yeah, I am. He said you’re a damn hard worker and I’d be stupid not to make room for you, but I gotta tell it straight. I have to fill that position I hired you for. Way he was talking, you might be out awhile.”
“I won’t. I’ll be in tomorrow.”
“He said you were in a coma.”
What’s with all this coma talk? “I’m fine. It’s just a headache.”
“You were out all week for a headache?”
I was praying Stone hadn’t said anything. “Yes. I’m good. For real. I can start tomorrow.” Make that, I need to start tomorrow.
Even a day being here, with only my homework that somehow Stone got for me, wasn’t enough. I fell asleep from sobbing so hard, and when I woke, Stone was gone. He left a note in my kitchen quarters saying he’d be back a bit after midnight. There were instructions how to use the remote to the television if I wanted to watch his godliness-level score. His exact words.
I snorted, then crumpled up the instructions, only to pause, think about it, and I smoothed them back out. One never knew when one needed to turn one’s brain off and sink into one’s oblivion, and I really needed to stop talking about myself as ‘one’.
Today.
Man.
I did not want to handle today.
My mind was swimming, and I knew I wasn’t acting rational.
Jared.
I needed to call my stepbrother…was he still a stepbrother?
God.
Gail.
I—no. I wasn’t going to crumble. I couldn’t.
What was I doing again?
I blinked.
I just called for my job.
I should make a list. What to get done. I would forget otherwise, like basic things such as showering. I sniffed in my armpit. Yeah. I should shower first.
Then call Jared.
Then I didn’t know. I’d make a list for that, too.
Lists.
This was how I got through my mom, how I got through what happened before. I—no, no, no. I couldn’t think like that. Stop thinking. That helped me, too.
Brain, turn off.
I showered.
After showering, I made coffee.
After coffee, I sat on the couch.
I didn’t know the time.
My stomach was growling, but I wasn’t hungry.
Water. I should drink water. I needed to stay hydrated.
So I wrote that on my list.
Shower. Coffee. Water.
What else did I need to do?
I added:
1. Shower
2. Coffee
3. Water Stay hydrated.
4. Call Jared.
What else?
5. Homework
6. Job
7. Call Gail’s sister?
I needed to find out anything. I’d been in that coma. What had Stone said? Oh, yes. They were already buried. Next to my mom. I sagged in relief. That was good. She would’ve liked Gail. And the funeral was already done.