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)
“Are you trying to blow your whole goddamn future? If so, congratulations, Son, you’re hitting it out of the park,” my dad lectured on the way home from the police station. “If it weren’t for Chief Watts stepping in, this would be on your record. You’d be in jail overnight. And god only knows what kind of fine we’d have to pay. When are you going to start thinking about someone besides yourself? You could have killed someone. You could have killed Josie. Did you think about that? What if she would have been out on the road and you crashed into her car? Do you think the chief would have saved you? No. He would have let your pathetic, careless, irresponsible ass rot in prison.”
Even though the alcohol was the reason for my situation, I was oddly happy that I had it in my system. I wasn’t nearly as buzzed as earlier, but it kept me from losing it with my father and his self-righteous lecture. God … could he taste the utter hypocrisy in his words?
When we reached the house, I marched past my mom to my room, ignoring her tear-stained cheeks and forlorn expression. Yes, I was a disappointment. Yes, all the men in her life were fuckups and disappointments. She was partially responsible. She allowed it to happen. She was too damn forgiving … of all of us.
When I heard my parents arguing about me, I opened my window, hopped onto the lower roof, and shimmied my way off the edge of it, body dangling for a second before letting go and dropping to the ground. It should have surprised me that Josie was standing two feet away from me, still in her white dress, arms crossed, but it didn’t. “Did you turn me in?” I grumbled, walking down the street.
“Yes.”
I whipped around because I didn’t really mean it. I didn’t really believe she turned me in. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.” She shoved my chest. “No, I’m not fucking kidding you, you stupid asshole.” Josie cut through the neighbor’s yard and wormed her way to the woods, but not to her favorite tree. I wasn’t sure where she was going. I don’t think she knew either. “You could have killed someone!”
“You could have killed Josie.”
I stopped next to a tree, slumping beside it and sinking to my ass, knees bent, head bowed. “I hate my life,” I murmured. “I hate it so much there are days I don’t want to be here.”
Josie clung to denial when it came to me. She never really believed I wanted to end my life, maybe because she didn’t know what to do with that potential reality. For the most part, she protected me.
She protected me from her dad.
My parents.
Officials at school.
Other kids.
Everyone … but myself.
I was my own worst enemy, my biggest threat.
“Don’t say that,” she whispered.
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s not. You just … you just need to get through this year. Go to college. Get away from your dad. Things won’t seem as bad. High school is like a prison. Just hold it together for one year, Colten. Not even … more like eight months.”
I stared at her shiny black shoes, and I thought she might wear them and that dress if she died, if some asshole like me killed her in a drunk driving accident. Then I wondered if they put shoes on dead people when they dressed them up for visitations and funerals. It was very Josephine Watts of me to wonder morbid shit like that. She’d clearly rubbed off on me.
My gaze worked its way up her legs. She had the best legs. Her dress. Her kissable lips. Her pretty hair. Under the wedge of moonlight finding its way between the trees, she looked ethereal.
Unexpected emotion caught in my throat, making my chest ache and my stomach roil with regret—or maybe it was too much beer. “I feel so b-broken.” My words cracked under the weight of guilt, under the weight of her perfect existence in my fucked-up world. It was an awful feeling to know that you were not good enough for someone, yet you selfishly wanted them against all sound judgment.
Josie stepped closer, forcing my legs out straight while she straddled my lap. Her hands slid around my neck, and she kissed my forehead, my nose, my cheeks. I didn’t deserve her. How did she not see that?
Her next words ripped a sob from my chest, and I hated her and loved her in equal parts for saying them. “We’re all a little broken. I’ll take you chipped, cracked, or shattered into a million little pieces. You’re my Colten. And I’m your Artemis.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“Hi,” Colten says as soon as I answer. He says it before I answer with my own greeting.
“Hi.” I can’t help my smile while sitting in a chair, doing my physical therapy exercises before bed.