Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“Oh, God,” Livia said, blinking as she stepped away from me with her hands raised. The song played out, the lyrics calling to me while my best friend stared at me like a psycho. “Did I officially push you over the insanity line?”
“No,” I managed through another fit of laughter, wiping tears from my eyes. “I… I think you just saved me.”
I ran a hand over the photograph, shaking my head. How did I ever think that was joy? How did I ever see him as forever?
What James and I had was love, yes — it was important in its own way. He did make me smile, and I did feel safe with him until the very moment I didn’t.
But God, comparing him to Vince, comparing how I felt with James with how I feel now?
It was laughable.
Literally.
Vince pushed me. He challenged me and made me want to be spontaneous, to be free, to be more. I felt alive with him — not just when we were tangled in the sheets, but any time we were together. He was quick to tease me, and I loved that he did. He never shut me out. He’d been open from the first moment I’d walked through his door with my camera in tow.
I wanted to walk a hundred riverwalks with him. I wanted to be at every game. I wanted to watch him create at his pottery wheel and watch him destroy on the ice. I wanted to laugh and dance and play, and know that no matter where we went or what we did, he would be there, protecting me, taking care of me, loving me.
I tossed the golf ball up in my hand, taking one last look, and then, I heaved it with all my might just as Fred Durst screamed motherfucker.
I didn’t even watch where it went, because in the next breath, I threw the frame down on the concrete and watched it splinter, the glass shattering with the most satisfying sound.
“Fuck YES!” Livia said, and then she handed me the next victim — a ticket stub from when we went to the zoo.
I tore it in half.
“AGAIN!” She cheered, wiggling her hips with a fist pump before another memento was tossed my way. It was a snow globe with a beach inside it. He’d bought it for me as a birthday gift.
I didn’t even like snow globes.
I smashed it with so much joy I laughed like a mad woman.
“FINISH HIM!” Livia bellowed in a deep voice trying to mimic the old Mortal Kombat video game, and then I had another frame in my hand only long enough to heave it up and throw it to the ground.
Piece after piece, object after object, picture after picture, we destroyed every item in that box while “Break Stuff” played on repeat. Love notes, photographs, Christmas ornaments, books, jewelry, old dried flowers — none of it was safe. And each time I touched something new, I felt what little of James I was holding onto tear away more and more, until the last shred of him was eradicated with the satisfying breaking of a necklace, the beads on it flying everywhere and skittering across the concrete.
When we were done, I was panting, smiling, and Livia high-fived me like a proud mother.
“Good job, bitch,” she said, smacking my butt. “Now, get your shit together, get your pretty ass dressed, and go. Get. Your. Man.”
Stained
Vince
“Alright, stay on him, stay on him! Skate, skate!”
I called out to our guys on the ice along with the rest of the team on the bench, chugging water and trying to catch my breath. My eyes skirted to the scoreboard, heart hammering in my chest.
We were tied two-two with less than ten minutes left in the last period.
Both of those goals were mine.
It was an explosive game for a rookie, and I knew that’s all the commentators would be talking about regardless of how this one turned out. But internally, the team felt something completely different.
Everyone on that bench with me and everyone out on the ice knew something was wrong.
I didn’t miss the way they’d eyed me over the last few days, how they’d tiptoed around me, avoiding all conversation. Coach didn’t ask if I was okay, and my teammates didn’t poke me for information, either.
Because my heart was broken and bleeding, but I was more focused on hockey than I had been all season.
I threw my all into it. I spent all my time at the rink — skating, biking, recovering, stretching, sleeping. Whatever I could do here, I did it.
And tonight, when we skated out for the first period, I lost myself in the one constant in my life.
I just wished it was enough.
Both goals I scored felt like nothing. I didn’t get the zip of accomplishment I usually did. I didn’t do a celly dance or chirp at the goalie or give any kind of reaction to the roar of the crowd. For the first time in my life, I felt numb on the ice.