Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I hear the truck door close before I see him walking around the truck and stopping to stare at me. “Hey.” I get up, holding up my hand. “Do you have a minute?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he just walks over, and the sound of the grass under his boots fills the night. “Everything okay?” he asks when he gets close enough.
“Yes,” I say, “I was just…” I put my hand on my stomach to help with the jitters. “I feel like I owe you an explanation.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” His voice is husky.
“Okay, fine, I don’t owe you an explanation.” I rephrase the sentence. “But I want to explain it to you.” I watch him at the bottom of the steps, and I sit down, knowing my legs will probably give out on me when I tell him what I’ve been practicing to say to him for the past two hours since I’ve put Wyatt to bed.
“Okay,” he agrees, walking up the steps and taking a seat beside me. I wonder if this is better that he did this since I won’t have to look him in the eye. But then he sits down, and I feel him beside me. I can feel the heat of his arm near mine, and all I want is for him to put it around my shoulders and pull me to him. I shake my head to stop that picture from staying in my head. “Talk.”
“I met Winston when I just turned eighteen,” I start. “Two months later, my father died. My mother was never really in the picture.” I look out into the darkness as I tell him, “He was perfect. A little too perfect, if you ask me.” I chuckle. “That should have been his first red flag,” I try to joke and look at Brady, who is staring at me. I wish I had kept the light on the porch on so I could see his eyes, feel the warmth from them. “He was seven years older than me. Too old for me, but I was in love with him. He supported me when I was in school and helped me with rent. He was everything you would want in a man. Until he wasn’t. I knew I had made a horrible mistake when I found out he was cheating on me six months after we got married. He promised me it was a onetime thing. Said he would never do it again. Being me and being stupid and naïve, I believed him.
“By the time I had Wyatt, it was over. Literally. He fucked one of the nurses while I was in labor. In fucking labor, giving birth to his son, and he’s out in the hallway closet fucking the nurse. The nurse thought I was sleeping, so she flaunted it all for everyone to hear.” I feel the disgust fill me. “Then it was like he didn’t even try to hide it. The women were on every single fucking corner. I went to his mother after six months. Sat down with her and poured my heart out to her. Thinking, I don’t know, she would be disgusted by her son. But she laughed it off and said she would talk to him about being more discreet.” I look over when I hear what sounds like a growl coming from beside me. “It lasted a whole two weeks. Then the whispers would start again. I mean that, along with the fact the women who would literally come to our house looking for him. Wyatt was a year old, and it was his birthday when the doorbell rang, and an eighteen-year-old was standing at the door, telling me she was having his baby.”
“Harmony,” he says my name, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know what happened to her. I don’t know if she had the baby or not, but I never saw her again. For the past six years, I’ve been planning my escape from him. It had to be slow, and I had to be smart about it. I had no job, and all the money was in our joint account. I couldn’t just take it and leave. So I started to save, spent money on clothes because he wouldn’t question it, and then returned them, pretending I forgot my card so they would give me the cash back. Six fucking years, Brady, I had to pretend to be a loving wife. I had to listen to them plot their revenge on everyone but themselves. I had to sit at the table with them spewing hate, hoping like fuck Wyatt would not hear it or fall for it. Two years ago, I went to visit them less and less, but at that point, Winston was a full-blown alcoholic and too busy getting his dick wet to notice.” I turn to him, the tear hitting my bare leg. “I just want to be free of them.”