Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
And didn’t come back.
Tallulah stopped screaming the moment she was in my arms, her eyes still pouring tears, as she stared at me.
“What’s wrong, pumpkin head?” I asked her, wiping a few of her tears from her big blue eyes away with the pad of my thumb.
She’d grown exponentially since the last time I’d seen her. She was definitely a much heftier weight than she’d been the last time I’d held her like this.
“She’s not feeling well…” Tally said as she pointed at the floor.
So that was what the smell was.
“You have an upset tummy, pumpkin head?” I whispered roughly.
The thought of this little girl being sick was enough to bring me to my knees.
“She’s apparently been sick all day, but my mother never called me to tell me.” Tally dropped down to her knees next to a puddle of throw up, and cleaned it like she’d done it dozens of times before. “Though, I assume that’s because she wants me to graduate.”
I snorted and took Tallulah out of the bedroom I assumed used to be Tally’s and was now a little mixture of them both, and straight to the bathroom where I stripped her and placed her on the counter next to the sink.
My mom always used to say that the sink in this bathroom was made for washing babies, and it’d seen many a’ babies in its lifetime. It was a stainless-steel farm sink, about half the size of what you would see in a kitchen.
It was just as deep, though, and I’d always wondered why my mom and dad had put it in here. It was more suited for a laundry room than a bathroom, but as I turned the water on, and made sure the water was on the lukewarm side of hot, I realized exactly why she’d done it.
To put babies in; exactly what she’d said hundreds of times.
It was something that I never quite understood the significance of until I placed Tallulah in it a short two minutes later.
“Bath?” I asked the small girl, dunking her hand under the water, causing her to smile slightly.
She looked sick.
Her skin was pallid, and her eyes had deep bruises underneath her lids.
Her hair was even a mess of curls.
“Isn’t this sink awesome?” Tally asked from behind me.
Yes, yes it was very awesome.
I cleared my throat. “Yep.”
She placed her hand on my shoulder.
“Is something wrong?”
Only my heart breaking.
“No.” I handed Tallulah a loofah, which she dunked under the water and immediately brought up to splash water everywhere. “A long, long time ago, there was a bad boy.”
She looked at me like I was crazy.
“A long time ago?” she teased. “You’re not now?”
I pinched her ass. “Hush and let me tell a story about the boy I used to be.”
She pantomimed zipping her lips shut, and then throwing away the key over her shoulder.
“I’m zipped,” she informed me.
I gave her a pointed look, and she started to giggle.
“I’m done, I promise,” she assured me.
I gave her a look that clearly said that I didn’t believe her.
“The boy was too smart for his own good, and decided to do something stupid when he realized that his parents lost their house.”
Tally’s head tilted to the side, and then her eyes filled with understanding.
“You’ve already told me this.”
I nodded.
“But what you don’t know, and what I didn’t want you to know, is that I made your father’s life a living hell.”
Her eyes widened, and then understanding dawned, and the compassion went out in her eyes.
“I never put two and two together…” she moaned. “It was you!” she hissed and stood back, pointing a soapy finger at me in accusation.
I nodded.
The tone of her voice, as well as the way she was crossing her arms over her chest let me know real quick that she knew exactly who I was to her father.
Exactly what it was I’d done to him.
Exactly how much I’d hurt her by admitting that one single fact.
“You made my dad’s life a living hell,” she accused.
I nodded, not defending myself. “It was bad, I’ll admit.”
“Bad?” she asked incredulously, snatching a towel down off the rack from behind her and walking toward Tallulah in quick, angry strides.
I waited to see what she was going to do and she didn’t disappoint.
The moment that she turned around, she threw the towel in my face.
“My dad didn’t want to get a restraining order against you.” She said through gritted teeth. “From what little information I was able to gather when I was younger, and over the years, you were a complete asshole.”
I caught the towel and stuffed it under my arm, waiting to see what she’d throw next.
Which happened to be a rubber duck in the shape of some ugly snowman aimed at my face.
I caught that, too, and got a face full of soapy water for my trouble.