Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
My eyes well up with tears.
Again.
And I was doing so well. I hadn’t shed a single tear in the last twenty-five minutes. I held on to my anger. I held on to my promise that I wouldn’t cry for him anymore.
I wouldn’t give him my single tear.
Because he’s already taken too many of them.
He’s already taken too much from me.
He’s already broken my heart too many times for me to cry over him. And that’s the thing, isn’t it, he breaks my heart but he does it in a way that hurts more than a broken heart should. He does it in a way that all the pieces of my heart come apart and scatter in the wind. Except one small piece.
That remains.
And that little piece, bloody and still clinging to life, beats and beats.
With hope.
With longing. With pining.
It beats because yes, I know he did what he did because he loves me.
He beat up his own twin brother because he was trying to show me. He was trying to protect me.
From him.
From his secret.
That he thinks I can’t handle.
That he thinks makes him dangerous.
That’s why he kept calling himself bad, didn’t he? He kept calling himself a shitty brother. It was all there. All the puzzle pieces: the way he kept away from everyone, the way he kept himself in the shadows, his crazy jealousy, his possessiveness, his irrational need for control and rules and that stupid one cigarette per day.
It’s because he’s got issues.
Issues with anger.
Like his brother Ledger.
I put it all together and I did it before the cops came and took him away. And when they did, I wanted to stop them. I wanted to tell them that it was me. He did it for me. That he wasn’t a criminal or a threat. He was just trying, in his twisted way, to protect me. He didn’t need to be handcuffed and hauled to a police station in a cop car.
But of course I couldn’t go.
There were all these people. All this commotion.
There was Jupiter who was so scared and crying over Shep’s barely conscious body. I don’t even know what she was doing there; probably to see Shepard. So I went to the hospital with them. I stayed there for as long as I could until my father came to get me.
My father.
I don’t know what was more surprising: that Dad showed up when I’d least expected him to or that he knew. Everything. He knew everything about my mother. About all the things she had done over the years.
And he was… horrified.
He was apologetic.
He said he hadn’t known. He had no clue—which was how I wanted it to be but still—because if he had, he would’ve intervened. He wouldn’t have kept his distance. In fact, the reason he kept his distance from me was to protect me from my mother. Because he knew how jealous she was of me, of her own daughter.
And then he said he was there to take me back to New York where I belonged. I belonged at our house, with our family where he’d protect me moving forward. And that family includes Biji. Whom he also sprung out of the old age home because he knew how much she meant to me.
It was both heartbreaking and heart-healing that I may have my dad back.
No, actually I was more surprised about the fact that even though the man I’m in love with was at the police station and he was in a similar state as Shep – bloody and beaten and barely conscious – he still found a way to protect me. He still thought ahead and found a way to keep me safe from my mother who was fucking furious when she saw me at their doorstep with Dad last night. Because Coach Thorne was the one who told my dad everything, at his request.
So then I spent all night crying and crying that he could do all these things, he could do all these crazy protective things, he could go to these lengths for me but he wouldn’t say that he loved me.
He’ll try to marry me off to his brother under this insane assumption that I absolutely have to have everything that I ever dreamed of, instead of just giving us a chance.
Just a little chance.
Of being together.
For real. Without secrets, without sneaking around.
And now I don’t know what’s going to happen.
I don’t know where we go from here.
Shep texted me a little while ago that he’s out but he didn’t tell me anything else. And I didn’t ask because I’m done asking. I’m done chasing him and running after him. I’m done fighting for this love when I’m the only one with the sword.
I’m done.
With him.
With that thought I try to focus on the movie when loud sounds and banging make me jump. And I spring up on the bed.