Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Oh.” Really, Jess. That’s it? A stupid ‘oh.’ “Sorry.” Not that much better, but better than ‘oh.’ “What time should I pick you up?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Caleb’s attitude is rife with anger. “How about sometime between when you lose the fucking attitude and learn how to issue a real apology?”
When he storms off, I chase him down. I only take three steps since he stops to collect Octavia from the couch. “Me lose the attitude? You have it in abundance. I’m shocked I can fit in here with how much attitude you have.” When he answers me with silence, I mutter, “Just because you have a dick doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be one.”
“Are you sure about that, Jess? Because from where I’m standing, that’s your stance on all men.” Octavia represents a rag doll when he plucks her off the couch and tosses her over his shoulder. I doubt he’s meaning to rough-handle her, he’s just too annoyed to think straight.
He isn’t the only one. “You’re being an asshole.”
“Once again, never denied it.”
When he exits with a dramatic slam of my door, I have no doubt the hinges need to be replaced.
They’re as broken and shattered as my heart.
CHAPTER 19
CALEB
While Octavia’s snores bellow throughout our apartment, I fight with all my might to remember that Jess’s anger isn’t mine to accept and that situations out of our control are harder to handle than everyday choices. We make mistakes because we don’t want to burden people with our issues, then we make them again because by trying to save them the grief, we throw them straight into it.
That’s what Jess did tonight. She tossed me out because she didn’t want to bog me with the emotions she believes aren’t mine. But she is wrong. Taking her focus off what happened by fucking her on her kitchen counter loosened the knot in my stomach, but it didn’t erase it. It is still there, as twisted up as ever.
“Fuck it,” I murmur to myself when my heart has me racing for the door before my head can shut it down. It isn’t just Jess who needs time to process things. I’m right there with her, just as fucking confused as I was when my mom spoke to Octavia’s mother in hushed whispers before she entered my room and closed the door behind her.
I lied and lied and lied until she either believed me or knew I’d never share what my grandfather had done to me. Then I drenched my sheets with tears instead of urine, thankful it might have been over but blind as to how all the weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders since I was a six had been shifted to Octavia’s.
Abuse is abuse no matter what form it is issued, but I just stood by and watched it happen to Octavia. I didn’t stand up. I didn’t shift the focus to me. I just watched it happen.
I’m not doing that this time around.
Jess isn’t my blood, and Octavia’s recollection of the event that occurred doesn’t seem nowhere near as violent as the one Octavia stumbled onto when she was ten, but that shouldn’t matter.
As I said moments ago, abuse is abuse.
“Jess…” As my deep voice rumbles through her apartment door, I bang on the warped wood in the same hectic pattern my heart is beating. “Are you still awake?”
I curse my anger to hell when my second knock pops open Jess’s door. The hinges have been put through the wringer today, and they’re as brittle as my remorse for not understanding Jess’s anger from the get-go.
“Jess…” This call out isn’t as determined as my last one. I’m not second-guessing my choices. It is the fact I can hear the shower running that has me wanting to walk backward instead of forward. “I know you asked me to leave, but I just want to make sure you’re okay.” My shoulder rumbles against the doorjamb of the bathroom when I prop myself against it. My phobia of bathrooms isn’t the sole cause of my big shakes. It is faint sobs of Jess bellowing through the quiet space. “Are you all right?”
Her fight to lessen her snivels breaks my heart. “I-I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.” What? I’m not good at this shit. Octavia has often accused me of not having an empathy bone. “Can I come in?”
Silence.
My request is met with silence.
“Jess…”
Against the better judgment of my head, I push open the bathroom door. Flashbacks hold my feet captive for a couple of seconds, but no amount of panic will stop me from entering the bathroom when I spot Jess beneath the steam. She’s sitting at the base of the shower stall. Her arms are cradling her legs, and her head is buried into her knees.
She looks utterly broken.
“Hey… come on… it’s all right.” With my long-sleeve shirt drenched in a nanosecond, and my jeans clinging to my thighs, I bob down to gather her in my arms before standing her to her feet. “You’re safe. You are okay. I’ve got you.”