Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“Colten, where are you going?” Katy asks as I pass her on my way out the door to the parking lot.
I don’t answer her. I can’t.
Josie is nowhere in sight. She rode here with her parents, and their vehicle is here.
“Josie!” I scream, running my fingers through my hair. She’s gone.
Fuck … I can’t breathe or feel anything but my heart losing all control while I turn in a slow circle, my world spinning out of control.
She’s gone.
“She’s not answering her phone.” Isaac says.
I grip my hair tighter and continue turning in a circle.
“Nerves. It’s just nerves. She probably decided to walk around the block. She’ll be back,” he says.
Does he really believe that?
I don’t.
She’s gone. And I’m so fucking scared she’s gone for good.
“Where are my keys?” I search my pockets.
“Probably inside with the rest of your stuff,” Isaac says.
I run inside, grab my keys, and run back to my car, ignoring everyone saying my name along the way. They’re concerned the bride has cold feet. I’m worried her entire body could be cold if I don’t find her soon.
“Just hold on, baby … please.” I speed out of the parking lot, scouring the area. I can’t file a missing person’s report, but I can call Rains.
“Hey, I’m trimming my beard just for your wedding. Why are you calling me?”
“I need a favor.”
“What’s wrong? Your voice is shaking. Colten?”
I clear my throat, the thick pain of reality shrinking my airway. “Josie’s missing. And I need to find her.”
“It’s probably cold feet. Give her a bit. She’ll show back up.”
“No. You don’t understand. She’s not having second thoughts about marrying me. She’s …” I pinch the bridge of my nose, waiting at a stoplight. “She’s suicidal. If I don’t find her soon, we won’t find her alive.”
He doesn’t answer for several seconds.
“Are you—”
“I’ll get her picture out to everyone. Colten, what hap—”
“Thanks.” I disconnect the call.
Over the next three hours, I look everywhere. Rains gives me updates.
Nothing.
Her parents give me updates.
My mom waits at my house.
My brother waits at the church, even after the guests go home.
Her brother waits at her house.
“Colten,” Mom whispers my name when I open the back door and shrug out of my jacket, yanking at my tie to loosen it.
“We’ll find her.”
I shake my head.
“Yes. We’ll—”
“NO!” I pound my fists on the kitchen counter.
She jumps.
Then I swipe my arms along the granite, knocking everything to the ground. “FUCK!” My fist lands into the glass cabinet door, then the next, and the next. Blood runs down my arm. “SHE’S DEAD. SHE’S DEAD!” I grab a chair and hurl it through the patio door. “FUCK YOU, WINSTON JEFFRIES!”
“C-Colten …” Mom sobs, trying to approach me before I break something else.
When my gaze meets hers, I see it. The perfect reflection of my pain. Even if I stopped loving my father, she did not. He selfishly took his life, leaving her with nothing but a million unanswered questions.
“Colten.” She takes a cautious step toward me while I pant with the intensity of a rabid animal. When she wraps a towel around my fist, my torso curls inward.
“Noooo …” I sob.
She hugs me when I fall to my knees. No more promising everything will be alright. Nothing will ever feel right again.
He won. And I lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Are you afraid of dying?” Josie asked while we sat in the grass fishing in the pond by the playing fields.
We were thirteen. I didn’t think about my mortality as often as Josie did.
“I mean … I don’t want to die.”
“Duh. But are you afraid of it? Like a car accident or a tornado? Cancer? Kids get cancer too. Murder … oh murder would be the worst, especially if it were slow. Like someone tortured you.”
“If you’re asking if I’m afraid of being tortured, then the answer is yes.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, neither one of us getting a single bite.
“Can you imagine wanting to die? Remember last year when they found that kid hanging from the swing set at North Elementary? The janitor found him in the morning?”
I nodded.
“He wanted to die. That’s why he hung himself. A fifteen-year-old who wanted to die. My dad said it’s a tragedy, but lots of kids commit suicide.”
Another nod.
Just another day in the life of being Josephine Watts’ best friend. Death. Death. And more death. Maybe I would have been more scared of it had we not talked about it so much.
“I can’t imagine wanting to die.” She blows out a long breath. “I suppose that’s good, right?”
“Sure.”
“But what if you lost everything. Like what if a tornado hit our neighborhood and my parents and Benji died. And you and your family died. And I lived. Maybe I would want to hang myself from the swing set too.”
I finished reeling in my line and cast it again.