Total pages in book: 212
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Aunt Francie told me with her finger in my face tonight that she was done with me and especially done with Kailey. Kailey makes her mad on a good day and today was not a good day. Kailey drank Aunt Francie’s special bottle of brandy that she was saving. Kailey borrowed Aunt Francie’s lighter and left the house with it in her pocket. Kailey cussed under her breath when Aunt Francie read her the riot act when she got back. Kailey got us both kicked out because even Aunt Francie, my own flesh and blood, painted us with one brush, considered us a duo and we both paid for the sins of one. I should say we both paid for Kailey’s sins because I wasn’t ever the one getting us in trouble.
How Kailey could look so peaceful sleeping in this squat with this smell and the shady squatter was beyond me. Kailey always slept like she didn’t have a care in the world. No, not a care because she knew I would keep watch. It’s been like this since that night that changed our relationship, that night she saved me and read the gratitude in my eyes. She knew she had bought my loyalty and she’s been exploiting it ever since. I guess I’ve been trying to save her, too.
Bitterness sweeps through me during times like these, times like these that keep happening, because she’s all I’ve really got and though Kailey is like a bull in a China shop, I can’t seem to just leave her to her destruction.
We agreed to first and second watches, as usual, when we found ourselves in a situation we knew was bad, but I was always first watch, which meant I got stuck with the whole thing because she couldn’t be trusted to keep herself awake. It always started the same, her promising to take second watch for real this time. Reminding me to wake her. I always agreed, but just stayed awake anyway. Because I learned to not even bother to wake her after remembering all too well what happens when I trust her to stay awake and keep me safe.
My tongue prodded the chip at the back molar that happened when I was thrown down the stairs that night after saying no to the guy pawing at me. A forever reminder that I couldn’t leave my fate in her hands again. It wasn’t the first time trusting her led to a permanent change in me. Someday, I’ll get that back tooth fixed. Someday, maybe Kailey will wise up. If I had a dollar for every time I told myself someday, I’d be rich.
So once again, I’d sacrifice sleep to make sure nobody laid a hand on either of us. Not that I could likely physically stop the quiet, twitchy guy if he tried. Instead, I’d wake her so we could try to fend him off together and make a run for it.
***
Of course the night ended like many other nights with Kailey have ended… the two of us running hand-in-hand to get away from bad things that happen to stupid girls in the dark.
We ran hand-in-hand, just like that night so long ago with her daddy unconscious on the floor after she thwacked him over the head with the heavy book. That was the night she saved me from him and declared she owned my virginity because she stopped him from taking it from me the way he took hers. It didn’t take her long to trade it, though. Another night, another time where we needed a place to stay, and I put my fate in her hands.
That was the night it changed between us, when she stopped looking at me as competition and instead as an ally. Though she didn’t want me staying with her and her father for a week while my dad and her mom went on vacation, they pushed the issue. I figured it was so she could continue to lord her amazing father-daughter adventures over me. She didn’t want me to have adventures, too.
The reality was that she knew I’d learn the truth. That there was no spoiling, no adventures, no Disney World. And though she could’ve left me to him so she’d catch a break from his attention, she saved me after he put his hands on me by hitting him over the head with that book. We ran hand-in-hand in the dark. And I’ve been trying to save her ever since.
My life hasn’t ever been easy. But the older I get, the harder it seems to get. And Kailey certainly helps make it that way.
Yeah, that little voice inside often tells me I really should turn away and leave Kailey to her schemes that always drop me in hot water, but I don’t want to give up on her. I’ve heard her hopes and dreams. I’ve held her while she’s cried for all she wants and doesn’t have. I feel those feelings on a deep level.