Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“If you cut off his head, you will never sleep well again. You’ll just be waiting for the moment I close those scissors around your balls.”
I bit the inside of my lip. It shouldn’t be this hard to decapitate a stuffed animal. Just close the scissors around its fluffy neck and end this all right here.
“I will never forgive you,” she choked.
And that was what I needed.
I fought everything inside me that told me not to do it, then closed my grip on the scissors.
A loud snip broke through the silence. Stuffing spilled onto the couch cushion, and Sid’s head fell to the floor.
With a war cry, Lola lifted the PlayStation over her head. “I hate you, Hendrix Hunt!” Then she launched it to the floor with a smash.
I sat there, fighting the urge I had to actually cry like a bitch as I watched her jump up and down on the broken bits of plastic—not over that stupid console, but over her. Because we were finally over, and I damn well knew it.
Sid, not Jessica, not all those other girls, but Sid was the final straw for her.
Her tear-filled gaze lifted from the destroyed PlayStation under her feet and landed right on me. “I hate you.” She rounded the couch and collected Sid’s remains before storming into the kitchen.
The clang of the trashcan lid closing rang out before she cut back through the living room and went upstairs—without Sid. A few seconds later, her door slammed shut.
I picked at the stuffing left on the couch and let out a heavy breath. She’d carried that stuffed animal everywhere with her—even through two years of foster care. And now she’d put him in the trash.
Cutting his off head was the shittiest thing I’d ever done in my life, and I couldn’t undo it.
I took the fluff to the kitchen and opened the trashcan. Sid’s decapitated body lay amongst beer bottles and Pop-Tart wrappers. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen.
Shaking my head, I dropped the fluff into the garbage. I couldn’t stand the idea of letting him go out in the trash. I grabbed his torso and head, picking bits of Ramen noodles off his fur before I carried him up to my room and shoved him under my bed.
I’d just gone back to the couch when my phone buzzed.
* * *
Medusa: You might not want to be here tonight
* * *
And now, she was about to fuck me right out of her… I sent her a thumbs up, then shoved up from the couch and left.
Chapter 29
LOLA
It had been three weeks since I lost Sid. I hadn’t spoken to him in person since. Of all the things Hendrix could have done to me, that was the worst. Maybe I could have fixed Sid, stitched him back together, but I didn’t want to.
Hendrix had severed more than just Sid’s neck, and I’d thrown away more than just his broken body.
I was done. I’d even tried to find somewhere else to live, but it was the same as before. Crackheads and perverts.
Every Friday night, Hendrix sent me a text. You might not want to be here tonight. Then I’d disappear to steal cars for Willy, go to Kyle’s, and get drunk enough to convince myself I didn’t care what faceless girl Hendrix had fucked.
Saturday night, I’d come home and text him: You might not want to be here tonight, right before inviting Kyle or Chad over to hang out. Sometimes both of them.
I was right back where I was two years ago, without Hendrix. But instead of crying into scratchy sheets at a foster home, I now cried barely ten feet from the very boy I tried so hard to hate.
The low glow of my bedside lamp caught in Chad’s blond hair when he rested against my headboard, clutching his bag of peanuts in one hand and his cards in the other. “Tens?”
“Go Fish,” I said, pinching a handful of nuts from his bag.
“Stealing my food and beating me.”
“I always beat you. Queens.”
He chucked a card down on the comforter with a huff.
The bang of the front door closing echoed up the stairs, and Chad sat bolt upright. “What was that?”
Voices drifted through the house, Hendrix’s distinct. He was breaking our unspoken rules of “you might not want to be here tonight.” I didn’t come back on Friday nights; he stayed out on Saturdays. That was how it had worked since he’d done the unthinkable.
“Hendrix, I guess.” I tried to play it cool even though my heart pounded in my chest. I could just picture him punching Chad in the face. But no, he wouldn’t do that because he didn’t care.
“I swear, if he tries to kick my ass, I will out myself from this closet so fast.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious. These muscles are for show. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”