Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 103918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
I understood suffering. The kids my brothers and I helped every day had suffered. They'd endured the most horrifying of experiences, but many of them did exactly what Gideon had done.
They held it in. They walled off their pain in a place deep inside of themselves in the hopes that it would never again see the light of day.
Many of them never came back from trying to live like that. They found other ways to dull their pain. And sadly, those who couldn’t bury or dull it often resorted to the ultimate escape.
I had no doubt that whatever had caused Gideon's agony was something he'd buried long ago. There was no other explanation for the anguish he'd allowed me to witness. My gut was telling me that his pain had to be tied to the child he'd lost. I still wasn't sure how his daughter had died or what the circumstances were surrounding his other child, but it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that Gideon was suffering, and I didn't know if I'd helped or hurt because Gideon hadn’t spoken to me about any of it.
It had been a week since I'd woken up alone in Gideon's bed, the front of my shirt still damp with his tears. When I’d gone in search of him, I’d found him in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes we'd left after our impromptu food fight. As soon as I'd greeted him, I'd known that things had once again shifted between us. I’d understood the embarrassment he’d probably been feeling, but I'd hoped that it was something we could work past.
We hadn't.
What we had managed was to go back to the relationship we’d had when I’d first arrived. One where he was the caretaker and I was the tenant.
After taking me home that evening, he'd made sure I was safe inside the cabin before he’d left. He’d returned the next day but only to restock the woodpile. It had been the same each day after that. The only conversation we’d had was when he'd asked me if I needed anything else. The formality had stung like a son of a bitch, but I’d understood it.
I'd spent my time in the cabin working on finding my way around. I'd started including the upstairs in my routine and after a week of learning all the various counts, I could now easily find my way from one room to another. The temptation to call my brothers had been strong, but I knew I wasn't ready. Surprisingly, it was now more about the vulnerability I felt about Gideon rather than the loss of my sight that kept me from reaching out to King or any of my other brothers. I'd vowed to myself that I wouldn't develop feelings for Gideon, but apparently my heart wasn't big on vows at the moment.
I'd sent Gideon a few texts here and there, but after the first few days, I hadn't even bothered to turn my phone back on to check them because I'd known he wouldn't respond.
I wasn't completely alone, though. Brewer had a habit of coming by every day in the afternoon. Gideon would inevitably come to pick him up, but he merely called the dog from the driveway and when I opened the door, the animal would take off for what I assumed was Gideon's waiting truck. I wasn't sure what I’d done to earn the dog’s affection, but I most certainly wished that some of it would rub off on his scarred owner.
The weather, while still cold, had been a little more consistent in the past week. There hadn't been any new snow, so I'd started taking walks around the cabin just to stretch my legs. I'd spent hours each day just figuring out the immediate perimeter around me so I wouldn't inadvertently get myself lost.
The cabin sat in a small clearing with trees on three sides. I’d started off by identifying how many windows or doors were on each side of the cabin. Once I’d established that, I'd walk straight out, counting the number of steps until I’d reached the tree line. Then it was just a matter of turning around and walking straight back. I’d probably looked like a fool doing it, but it had given me both exercise and confidence.
My next goal had been to try and tackle the driveway so I could walk up and down it each day and not risk getting turned around in the woods somewhere. I’d used Gideon's consistent plowing to my advantage. Whenever I’d felt snow above my ankles, I’d known I was straying off the driveway and I'd made a correction. I never went too far, and I always kept my phone on me, but so far, I hadn't needed to use it.
Today, I was once again reliant on someone else for assistance. Namely Andre, my driver, to take me into town so I could pick up some groceries. I'd wanted to ask Gideon to do it, but I'd suspected he would have only agreed out of obligation. His silence had made it clear that he didn't want to see me and while I tried not to take it personally, it still felt like a rejection. I missed his touch and his gruff voice. Sometimes I wished I could go back and play that afternoon over and not push him to deal with whatever had happened in his past. God knew I had plenty of things in my own past that I'd never really dealt with. My insistence on pushing Gideon to confront his pain meant I'd now become a reminder of his past rather than someone who could help him work through it.