Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Do I still trust him?
I’ve found out new things about him, that’s for sure. Things that aren’t comfortable or easy, things I don’t even like. In some ways, I feel like he completely tricked me into having feelings for him. If he had come out of the gates with brutalizing near-strangers and threatening my friends, would we be here right now? Of course we wouldn’t. Even the way he has admitted to bullying me this week and pushing me around. I’m not comfortable that he knows he can do that. I’m not comfortable that there’s really nothing I can do to stop him. Sure, I could call his bluff, but then what happens if he’s not bluffing?
Because I believe Hannah was right. I don’t believe for a minute that he’s bluffing. I’ve seen him do damage now. Some stupid girl wrote mean shit about me online, I let him know it bothered me, and he nailed her to a fucking park bench.
Malicious and crazy, but at the same time, that’s pretty impressive dedication.
He might be unhinged, but he certainly showed up for me.
And while it is scary knowing he can do shit like that without apparently feeling any guilt, I’m also aware he doesn’t seem to do damage impulsively. I don’t think I have to be afraid of him flying off the handle and doing something he doesn’t mean to do.
He has pretty much laid out his entire play for me as far as setting Frank up. Every move he made was deliberate. There were even moves he made preemptively before he ever planned to set the kid up, just in case he needed to someday. Dare doesn’t just make careful plans, he creates insurance policies for himself in case he ever needs to make a plan on the fly.
Sharing as much as he has with me when I didn’t even ask…
He’s given me all I need to lock him up if I really wanted to. I could take what I know to the police. He has trusted me with information they couldn’t possibly refute. Hell, I know where the leather gloves he wore when he attacked her are.
But then there are all these other things. He says he’s handling Anae, and I’ve pretty much stopped even worrying about that. She feels like a potential threat to my actual well-being, but she doesn’t feel much like his girlfriend anymore.
I thought there would be some blowback after I posted that picture of us together and there wasn’t. He hasn’t told me anything changed, but he did also kiss me at school.
I don’t know. The Anae stuff feels like a superficial issue at this point. He has made his intentions with me clear. He’s not treating me like a side piece, he’s treating me like his girlfriend.
“Was that a hard question?” he asks lightly.
I tip my head back and look up at him. He doesn’t look truly bothered, so I kiss his chin. “Can I still trust you?” I ask him honestly. “A lot has happened since you told me I could. There was a lot you didn’t tell me.”
He absently caresses the small of my back. “I told you there would be,” he says. “There are some moves I need to make without cluing you in beforehand. That’s why I said I needed you to really trust me. If you only trust me until I do something you’re not sure about, that’s not trust. I need the kind of trust that, even when it looks like I’ve crossed lines, you don’t believe it. You believe that I have your back.”
“You want me to be a fool for you,” I say, smiling faintly.
He doesn’t smile back. “You’re not a fool if you’re right. I need you to trust that I would never make a fool of you, Aubrey.”
I sigh. “Why can’t things just be easier with you?”
He cracks a smile. “That’s just not how I work. Sorry.”
“Well, what if that’s not how I work?” I ask honestly. “Maybe I’m just not a very trusting person.”
He shrugs. “You’ve gotta trust me anyway.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You go to the tower,” he states somberly.
I crack a smile. “That can’t be your answer for everything.”
“It’s not my answer for everything. I have many other answers—flowers, gifts, fucking, outright emotional blackmail. Honestly, I think I’ve hardly used the tower.”
I laugh, pushing against his chest, but his grip on me only tightens. “You’re shameless,” I tell him.
“And you’re stuck with me,” he states. “I can see myself being with you forever, Aubrey. I’m not bullshitting you. I can see us having kids and a family, birthday parties and fucking… trips to the popcorn store. I’m not one foot in this thing. I want it all, and I want it with you.”
My insides feel suddenly hollow hearing him say that. “Really?” I ask softly.