Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 49826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 249(@200wpm)___ 199(@250wpm)___ 166(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 249(@200wpm)___ 199(@250wpm)___ 166(@300wpm)
This wasn’t so bad, being out here with the rain and the wind kicking up around me while I remained safe and sheltered inside my little cocoon. At least I wasn’t soaked through to the skin, so it wasn’t too cold to relax. I sat on the chaise, feeling separated from the rest of the world for this brief space in time as I looked up at the canopy of leaves and branches overhead.
Out here, I can let my mind wander; it’s so dreamy and ethereal. I remember my aunt and Hal used to like it out here a lot, even sometimes on days like this. I never joined them those times; they always seemed to have so much to talk about. I rested my head on my knee with my eyes looking out toward the falling rain. I guess I should start preparing for the worse since it doesn’t look like things are gonna go the way we’d hoped.
I felt a chill run down my spine, and my hand went to my tummy. I know it’s too soon, or maybe all mothers have this sense of knowing, but I’m almost certain I’m carrying Nick’s child. What will I do alone with a child? Hal had made contingencies in case that happened, sad as he was to even contemplate failure. But it takes more than money to raise a child.
I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I didn’t hear him or sense him until he was right there. I didn’t have time to sit up before he was there, towering over me and looking madder than I’d ever seen him. He glared at me without speaking, and my tummy started to hurt. Then he spoke, and I lost all the feeling in my limbs.
“Do you want to fuck”
“Excuse me?” The words almost got stuck in my throat.
“You heard me; I asked you do you want to fuck?” I felt my face lose all its color as my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. I tried getting up from the chaise, but he didn’t allow me to.
“I think, I think that we should go back inside and calm down. You’re still upset from earlier.”
“Oh, I see; you can only fuck me when you’re pretending that I’m someone else, right.”
“What are you talking about?” I can’t breathe—the look on his face, in his eyes. I felt real fear as I looked up at him, feeling helpless and alone, so alone.
“What am I talking about? What have you have been doing to me to make me act like my grandfather? Why do I get up smelling like cigar smoke when I don’t even smoke? Why do I wake up with the taste of you on my tongue and all over my damn face? And why fuck were you in my bed in the middle of the night?”
It was then I realized he was holding something in his hand, and when he threw it in my face making me cry out with dread, I jumped up from the lounge, and the soft clothing fell to the ground. It was the clothes we’d worn the night before. I had one job, and I screwed it up. Since I’m the only one who knows what’s going on after I, too, come out of the fog, it’s my job to clean up any evidence left behind.
There’s nothing I could do about my scent on him because even though I lure him into the shower each time, we always end up making love one last time before he leaves me. But everything else I’d had to take care of. Maybe I knew on some deeper level that this was the end. Maybe that’s why I’d been so lax the night before.
“You have nothing to say?”
“I…it’s not what you think.”
“Liar, you fucking liar. What is it then? Huh?” You not turning me into some zombie to make me act like my grandfather so you can fuck him?” I cried out when he raised his hand as if he were going to hit me, but all he did was run his hand over his head.
I was shaking like a leaf, afraid to look at him, afraid to say anything more while he was in this state because he wouldn’t believe me. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was looking at me; I could feel the heat of his stare. I jumped and with good reason when he turned towards me and with a harsh, ‘damn, you’ tore my dress down the middle.
NICK
I feel like I’m going insane like this whole thing is one long, drawn-out dream that I can’t wake up from. I refuse to call it a nightmare because it’s not. Because the truth of what I saw on that bed wouldn’t let me. There was something animalistic, almost raw, about the way I took her. And yet there was a kind of reverence, too, even though I could see the pain in her eyes on the video.