Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 96586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Shit.
Did I have a point?!
“I’m stronger now. And the bullshit that I used to tolerate isn’t gonna fly this time. No more secrets. No more lies. No more ‘shielding me’ from the things you didn’t think I could handle. I wanna know it all. I deserve to know everything. I deserve better than just half of someone. And since we’re now on the subject, I won’t fucking share you again.”
His hand curls lovingly around the nape of my neck at the same time his eyes bore into mine. “I’m yours, baby. Only. Yours.”
Air is robbed from my lungs along with the ability to speak.
Thankfully, our order number is called to give me the grace I desperately need. Ry’s thumb gives the skin in his possession a lovingly stroke. “Can I go grab that or are you gonna start singing ‘Independent Women’ at me?”
There’s no stopping the corner of my lips kicking upwards in amusement.
“Should I sing it for you?” he playfully questions while slipping away from me. “Maybe get my Beyonce on and do the dance to?” Ry dramatically purses his lips and executes a sassy hand wave. “Am I doing this right?”
“Embarrassing yourself in the food truck lot?” I effortlessly tease back. “Oh yeah, babe. You’re killin’ it.”
Our shared laughter is followed by him kicking his chin towards the seating area. “Will you please pick us somewhere to sit, Charlie’s Angel?”
He’s shot another good-natured grin as I amble away to find an empty table.
It doesn’t take long for me to get settled nor for him to bring our dishes over to us. We take a moment to rearrange our dishes, separate the items accordingly, and to each get a bite in of the bacon wrapped hot dogs we ordered.
Moaning from the glorious flavors is mindlessly done, an action that seems to stop the new yet old man in my life from eating altogether. “Fuck me, is this what porn food is?”
I initially laugh prior to flying my hand over my mouth to cover it.
“Maybe it should be?” Ry jokingly suggests. “Maybe you should just send me random videos during my lunch break of you eating yours while moaning.” He prepares to have another bite, pleased with my increased laughter. “Would that be weird?”
“Pretty fucking weird.”
“Guess I’m a weird motherfucker then,” he chuckles between chews. “And this weird motherfucker,” his light tone suddenly shifts to a serious one, “wants you to know that shit is gonna be different this time.”
My lips wrap around the dish to prevent from interrupting.
“You’re right. You do deserve better than the piece of shit I turned into back then.” Eating is abandoned to continue speaking. “I’ve never truly forgiven myself for how I hurt you. The mental stress. The emotional hell. Phys-” his choking on the end of the word prompts my clean hand to reach across the table to comfortingly rest on his. “Physically mistreating. I wanna say that shit wasn’t me, but that would be a lie. It was me. It was who I had become. And it’s the very person I stayed until a few months ago when I entered rehab for the final time.”
His confession unhinges my jaw.
“I’ve spent the last ten years addicted to numbing the pain of my mistakes. Hurting you when I was fucked up. Letting you go. Not fighting for you. Living without you. Pretending my parents’ divorce and inability to fucking love me didn’t hurt. Convincing myself having a so-called family didn’t matter…”
My fingers unconsciously flex in another attempt to provide ease.
“For ten…fucking…years…drugs basically defined who I was. They decided where I went. Who I went with or to. They seemed to be the only way to tame the demon inside me, that being I was incapable of overcoming. Losing you back then was the first as much as it was the final fucking straw. Between the bullshit with my family, the bullshit of adolescence, and the bullshit fear there was nowhere to go but down, I began to drown in a world I never wanna see again.” His face flinches in objection. “That I’m never gonna see again.”
I like that.
And I like that he’s willingly showing me the ugliest and scariest part of him.
I like that he trusts me.
I like that this means I can trust him.
“Pres, I’ve made a shit ton of mistakes, but the biggest one has been and always will be hurting you. In rehab, there was this therapist or counselor or whatever the fuck you wanna call them that finally got to me. He called me on my shit. He tore me apart. He forced me to look at myself in ways I had been too much of a coward to.”
The idea he had his own Katherine poking around in his brain causes my grip to tighten.
How fucking insane is it that we were living parallel experiences?