Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I’m never letting her go again.
I really hope the two weeks we’ve been apart have gone well for Amelia and she wasn’t as miserable as I’ve been for every second of them. I know she was hoping her mom had really changed this time, and while I don’t think her mother is a useless human being, I really want Amelia to have a relationship with her again if that’s what she still wants.
Jerome turns off the main road and drives down a thin, winding road with no traffic. It’s the road I’ve driven up to so many times over the last two weeks, but I’ve always forced myself to turn away from. And now here I am again, only this time, finally I don’t have to turn away.
I feel my heart skip a beat when I see a sign saying Sunny Vale Trailer Park is coming up. I can feel butterflies swirling in my stomach and while I laugh at myself inside for acting like a lovesick teenager, I don’t want the feeling to go away. I love being in love with Amelia and I want to feel every part of it, every little emotion that goes along with it.
We drive beneath the Welcome to Sunny Vale sign, and for the first time, I see the trailer park Amelia was living in before we met. I have nothing in particular against trailer parks, but this one is ancient looking, really run down. It looks like it might have been a nice enough place to live in back in the eighties or nineties. Amelia deserves better than this.
I give Jerome directions as we make our way through dilapidated trailers.
“Fucking hell. If I’d have known it was this bad, I never would have let her come back here.”
“It’s better to live a bit rough for a couple of weeks than it is to be at risk,” Jerome says.
“Yeah, I guess,” I agree.
But she’s never going back to living this life ever again, I vow to myself. She’s never going to live like anything but the queen she is from now on.
We pull up outside of the right trailer. It doesn’t look as old and decrepit as some of the other trailers, but it’s hardly welcoming. All the curtains are pulled tightly closed as if Amelia’s mom is afraid someone might see in. It’s not because she’s ashamed of where she has to live since the trailers around hers are all in a worse state than this one so there’s nothing she’d have to be ashamed about there.
“I won’t be long,” I say to Jerome as I get out of the car.
I have no intention of dragging this out. I just want my Amelia back home. If things have gone well though and Amelia and her mom are getting along, I’ll obviously have to make the effort to get to know her, so maybe I’ll stay for a cup of coffee or whatever and spend some time getting to know the woman. It’ll be hard to be nice to the woman knowing the way she made Amelia’s childhood so miserable, but if Amelia can forgive her, then I’ll have to find a way to accept her, or at least put on a damned good show that I have.
Jerome nods, opens the glove compartment, and pulls out a newspaper. I walk quickly along a short concrete path that’s cracked and full of weeds growing through it.
Despite this depressing place, I am deliriously happy at the thought of being reunited with Amelia in just seconds. It’s hard to believe she’s behind that door, and I have to pinch myself to convince myself this is real and not a new form of torture my nightmares have conjured up.
41
AMELIA
I finish washing the dishes and grab a grubby looking tea towel. It’s not dirty, it’s just stained. I start drying the dishes with it. Dan looks over at me, but I ignore him, forcing myself to keep drying the bowl in my hand and pretend I haven’t noticed his eyes on me. He mutes the TV.
“Get me a beer.”
No ‘will you’ no ‘please’, just the demand. I debate telling him to get his own beer, or better yet, to go fuck himself and die, but I don’t. It’ll be easier just to give him the beer. It will keep him distracted while he has a drink in his hand. I bite my tongue, and as painful as it is to respond to Dan’s commands, I put the now dry bowl down and go to the fridge and grab a can of beer. I dutifully take it to Dan and put it on the table. He looks at me with a sly smile and he reaches out towards the can of beer, but instead of taking the can, he changes direction and clamps his hand around my wrist.