Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“I was cleared to drive,” I tell her.
She shoots daggers at me. “Well, you shouldn’t have been.”
I swallow.
That hurts.
I wish I knew why she hated me so much.
We get in her car and I say nothing as we drive into town toward their house, the house I hate walking into, the house that no matter how many times I enter makes me feel like the devil has just waltzed through its doors. Nobody there likes me. I can’t say I blame them. But I go, every single day when I’m home, because I owe him that much.
Even if it slowly eats away at my soul.
We arrive at the mansion that is lacking in nothing. His parents are both rich, and thankfully so, because the care he requires is around the clock. They provide the best for him, though none of it is what he wants. He doesn’t leave the house. He doesn’t go outside. He doesn’t work. He stays inside, refusing help, refusing to allow life to be lived again.
I can’t say I blame him.
I slide out of the car, swallowing my anxiety and following my mother to the front door. The house is big and luxurious and nicer than anything I’ve ever been into. My mother comes here purely because she thinks she fits in. I don’t think it has anything to do with compassion and care but merely some hope she might gain something out of acting like she’s being the woman to push me into doing the right thing.
“Carmela, Amalie,” their butler, and the only kind man in the house, Theodore, smiles when he opens the front door.
“Hi, Theo.” I smile at him, and he reaches out, giving me a warm squeeze on the shoulder.
“How are you, Amalie? You’re looking a little worse for wear.”
I only recently got the cast off my broken fingers, but I’m still not able to play for a few more weeks. It feels like a piece of my soul has been taken from me. Everything else is healing slowly. My face is no longer terrifying to look at, because I was so badly beaten. Everything is healing well, all my stitches are out, now it’s just the road to recovery.
“I’m getting there. How are you?”
“Doing well, as always.”
Theo glances at my mother, who strides past him, tossing her coat in his direction.
“They’re in the tea room,” Theo says to her back, clutching the coat and giving me a look.
I sigh. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Amalie. Don’t let him treat you poorly. Contrary to what you believe, you do not deserve it.”
He tells me this every time I come here, and every time I smile and say, “Thank you, Theo.”
I move down the familiar halls, ignoring the expensive paintings and the lush rugs, and step into the tea room. My mother is already in and chatting with Caiden’s mother about some expensive gala coming up that she simply must attend. My eyes move straight over to Caiden sitting by the window. He doesn’t turn when I walk in. He never does.
His mother, Chantelle, looks over to me with those piercing blue eyes that make my blood run cold. She rarely speaks to me now. She allows the visits, I suppose for the same reason my mother pushes them, because they think it’s the least I can do. But she makes it loud and clear she has no time for me. She does not like me. Because I ruined her son’s entire life.
“We’ll leave you alone,” my mother says, taking Chantelle by the arm and leading her out of the tea room.
I sigh and take a hesitant step toward Caiden, then another, until I’m standing beside him. He glances at me, purely so I can read his lips, otherwise I don’t even think he’d do me that honor.
“You continue to come, and I continue to tell you not to. I don’t want you here.”
His voice is emotionless. Scathing. Angry. Broken.
“And I continue to tell you, it’s my duty.”
“You are nothing to me,” he scowls. “Nothing. I’d be happy if I never saw your face again, Amalie. Why can’t you understand that?”
The same old words.
The same old hurt.
“Okay,” I tell him. “How are you?”
I ask him this daily. Ignoring his anger.
And he spits fire back at me, nothing changes.
“How the fuck do you think I am?”
I study him. I used to flinch. When I first saw him. But now it’s almost like I’m used to it, like I don’t expect to see him any other way. It’s been a year and a half since the accident, but time doesn’t heal all wounds. It certainly doesn’t heal these.
His cheek, chin, and part of his neck is burned. Third degree. He has had numerous operations and skin grafts to try and fix the damage, but it will never ever be normal, not even close. His skin is damaged beyond repair, his features forever broken. There is no direct damage to his mouth, eyes or nose, but the skin he damaged around those areas takes away from his once rather striking beauty. All because of me.