Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“I’m a joke, Cole. Hey, can I get someone over here to—Yeah, thanks, it started bleeding. Again.”
I swallow hard and wipe my forehead. Am I sweating? “It’s … just a … just a part of … live theatre,” I remind him. Even just a tiny glimpse of Anthony has burned the image into my retinas. Every time I blink, I see that dark red streak cutting down his face like a lightning bolt. I try with all my might to make it disappear, but the vision stubbornly persists. “Stuff just … just h-happens.”
“Why do you sound funny?”
“I’m fine.”
“Oh, shit, the auction’s next. You nervous, man? Forget about me. It’s just a little blood. Who cares about a little blood? At least they weren’t real hammers, right? I’d be missing my whole face.”
I grip the back of a nearby chair, gathering my breath.
I blink away the vision over and over.
It keeps coming right back, worse and worse. His whole face covered in blood. Then his whole head. Then his clothes, drenched to his socks in nothing but dark, viscous blood.
Is that sweat in my eyes or am I dying?
“Just my luck, it’s started bleeding even worse than before,” gripes Anthony, adding more ingredients to the nightmare stew already brewing in my imagination. “Tamika, I’m so sorry to be a pain again, like I always am, always screwin’ things up … I can’t go out like this, I’m so sorry. I—” Suddenly he bursts into tears. “God, I am just screwin’ up this whole thing, aren’t I? It’s one thing after another. I’m such a screw up!”
“No, no, you’re fine,” comes Dean to the rescue. “Hey, look at me. Can you—Can you look at me? Listen here, son …”
“I’m a screw up!”
Their words become a blur as I reel against the chair, blinking rapidly. Don’t faint. Don’t faint. Don’t you dare fucking faint. My grip on the back of the chair tightens, my knuckles turning white.
I really need Noah right now.
“Cole?” calls Tamika in a hushed whisper, appearing in front of me suddenly. “Is that okay with you?”
I meet her eyes and swallow hard. Everything is spinning. “Is what okay?” I breathe out, confused.
“We’re gonna send you out first for the auction,” she explains. “Dean is with Anthony trying to calm him down. We’ve got to buy them time, so we’re getting you out there first. Frankie is already introducing the auction part and getting the crowd worked up.”
“I’m gonna—We have to who?” My brain is losing steam.
“Don’t stress about it. The night’s almost over, Cole! Isn’t that great news? Just one last part!”
“Y-Yeah,” I finally manage to say, then let go of the chair the way one lets go of a cliff to drop to their certain death. I stagger by Tamika’s side, fighting to maintain my footing despite everything spinning around me as she guides the way. Suddenly I’m onstage again too soon, blinded by stage lights. Everyone feels so far away. My confusion persists through everything Frankie says. I hear the audience laugh at a joke. I keep blinking, trying to focus my eyes on anything, to mentally grab ahold of any semblance of reality, of anything to contextualize what in the fuck is going on.
“Are we ready, everyone?” calls out Frankie, who at once has me hooked by the arm and brought to the very front of the stage. “What’s with the funny face? You want out of this deal, Cole? Too bad, and too late! Hah! Now which one of you out there wants to go on a special one-on-one date with Mr. Picture Perfect?”
The audience screams at my face.
I teeter from side to side, Frankie’s grip on my arm being my only tether to Planet Earth, keeping me upright.
“We’re starting the bid at $100, folks!” announces Frankie. At once, the bid paddles start going up. Frankie, who I imagine has no experience whatsoever in hosting any form of auction, becomes a cute animal scrambling for the surface of the water, drowning at once in bids. “$125! Oh, uh … $150! I’ve got $175! $200? And is that $225? $250? Goodness, you guys are eager! $275, now! Is there $300 out there? $325?”
Stop thinking about Anthony’s wound. It’s gone. It’s not even there anymore. Focus.
Then I see red all over my arm from the day of the festival.
I see Noah’s shocked expression as he gazes down at my arm.
Suddenly we’re children in my backyard—the backyard at my half-remembered old house, the one that was just down the street from Noah—and I stare at my reflection in a mirror.
Blood covers my face like a wedding veil.
Why am I thinking of myself as a child suddenly, covered in blood from the top of my face to the chin?
I hear my mother’s scream, far, far away.
Just then, spotlights crack on like lightning bolts from behind me when the bidding is down to two final people going back and forth. I see the face of a strikingly handsome young country guy in a plaid shirt with an excited woman seated by his side cheering him on. Closer to the stage, an older gentleman in a pink-and-blue floral dress shirt with stylish grey hair and an earring by himself.