Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
My face heats up, more at the fact that when I finally start peeing, it’s such a relief. It feels so good. So freaking good. Maybe the best thing I’ve ever felt, which is a pretty sad state of things. I barely stop myself from doing the whole aaaahhhhhhhhh thing because I’d really like to hold on to a shred of my humanity.
This might be the longest pee of my life because that’s just how things go. When you need to be fast, it isn’t fast. I mean, it’s fast, but I’ve been holding it for a long time, and it shows. And shows. And really shows.
Oh my god. Oh farge. What now?
I didn’t grab anything to wipe with.
The only apparent choice I have is to hold this position while I stare at the collection of papers on the front passenger seat. A slight breeze rushes into the car, lifting the edges just a little. The whole thing is a blur of small black print on stark white.
I can see where my fingers creased the pages when I grabbed the damn thing out of my dad’s hand yesterday. I hairy-eyeballed my mom like my life depended on it and silently cursed my granny for her wild notions that ruined my life long before my own mother was even in existence. That right there is the contract promising me to Thaddius Wonderduck.
I don’t even get it. Honestly, I don’t.
Rationally, I know I could just live my own life. That the contract doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like we’re married, and it’s not like assets have been promised or the world is going to end.
It’s just wrong.
That’s the long and short of it. It’s just wrong that our names and our parents and grandparents’ signatures are on that document. I could have just torn it up. I just finished college, so I have a degree. I could have supported myself and told my family to go to hell. But I love them, though, and I didn’t want to cut them out of my life forever. People get crazy ideas and wild notions, and they do silly things. It doesn’t make them bad people, though it does sometimes make them obnoxious. This mistake has to be righted.
This contract needs to be unsigned, and it needs Thaddius Wonderduck’s signature right there beside my own, stating that we’re voiding this bitch.
I don’t even know, but I knew one thing yesterday. The only way this was going to be made right was if Thaddius and I undid it ourselves.
Except I am in New York, and he is in Seattle, and our families are standing in the way of righting anything because they don’t think there’s anything to right. In their minds, I’m not just a possession being possessed by a possessor. I’m not a tool, a thing, or an object. In their minds, this is a happy thing and a dream come true.
Okay, my bladder is probably all dry and good. I should definitely get moving before I moon the entire state of…well, wherever the hell I am.
I pull my panties back on and adjust my dress, smoothing it down. Then, I march over to the driver’s side of the car and slide in behind the wheel.
My parents made the unfortunate mistake last year of saying some things about Thaddius when they thought I wasn’t listening. Something about him making a truck ton of money off some medical software and then getting his heart broken by a woman who was only ever with him for the money—a fact unfortunately very clearly revealed to him by his grandmother, who obviously had some plans for his life. I’m not sure if he was notified about me at that point or if he knew before, but he went completely off the rails and declared he was going to become a homesteader and a sheep farmer.
Sheep, as pets.
The place was about an hour from Seattle and twenty minutes from some town called Upperhand, which sounds like one of those can’t-miss places. Someone there will surely have heard of Thaddius Wonderduck and can point me in the right direction.
So, yup.
Currently, I’m back behind the wheel of my super stiff, super uncomfortable, made-for-short jaunts little sports car, heading out to find my sheep farmer sort of betrothed to annul a marriage that hasn’t even taken place yet.
After this, I can see the appeal of getting away from one’s family and everything one knows and going alone. Sheep seem like great company when finding out what one’s family is capable of. Maybe Thaddius can teach me a thing or two after signing whatever it is we’re going to have to sign to grant us our freedom.
Sheep or not, whatever’s in my future, I’m facing it with my eyes wide open and head on this time.