Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
For hours on end, I’ve tried to decide what to do to make it right. But I don’t know how the fuck it got so bad. The vision of her in the window is one that’s stayed with me.
I know she loves me. I fucking know she does. But then how could she possibly want to end it? I don’t understand. All I know is that I’m not okay and neither is she.
Jase asks me something and I barely hear it. I shrug, not wanting to stop for anything. I just want to get back so I can hold her again. I don’t know what to say to her though. Everything I’ve done has made things worse.
“Are you all right?” Jase asks and again I shrug.
I don't trust myself to speak. All the while in that holding cell I held it together, but it doesn’t escape me that without them watching, all I want to do is break down.
“What the fuck happened in there? Did you tell them something?”
My eyes narrow as I stare back at Jase. Anxiousness is rolling off his stiff shoulders as he glances between me and the road.
“As if I’d ever fucking do that,” I answer, my voice low. The anger and disappointment are apparent.
“Don’t fucking look at me like that,” Jase answers, relief more evident than anything else. We slow to a red light and he questions me again, “What the hell happened then?” Worry riddles into his words.
I swallow thickly, refusing to look back at my brother as the memories of what she almost did play back in my mind.
“Carter didn’t tell you?” I ask him as I stare at the window and the car ushers forward again. My throat is tight and my voice nearly cracks, “He didn’t tell you what happened?”
Silence from my brother brings my attention back to him. He doesn’t look back at me as he drives, his hand twisting on the leather steering wheel. He adjusts in his seat and takes in an audible breath but still doesn’t say anything.
“He had to have told you,” I press him, not wanting to be the one to say it out loud again. I don’t want to breathe more life into it. I want it all to die and wither away, never to be thought of again.
“Which part?” Jase questions, gently and carefully. When he looks back at me all I see is pity.
“The part where she asked me to kill her in her sleep?” I question him with tears pricking at the back of my eyes. “Or the part where she almost killed herself and jumped out the fucking window?” My voice raises as my hands tremble.
I’ll never forget that sight. I’ll never forget the way it felt to hold the woman I love, while she held me back with everything in her, relieved to be done running and accepting of her death.
So long as I live, she shouldn’t have those fears. She shouldn’t have those thoughts.
Tears escape and I angrily brush them away at my brother’s silence. “Well did he fucking tell you?” I nearly scream at him, the anger more my friend than the sadness that sinks it’s claws into me.
Jase’s response is gentle again, “Yeah, yeah he told me what the lawyer told him and what you told the lawyer. We all know.” Jase’s shoulders relax somewhat, his tone is comforting when he looks back at me. “I know it can be hard when there’s tension between you and the person you have feelings for–”
“Tension?” Indignation ricochets in the cabin of the car as I yell out. “Tension?”
Jase looks out the window and when he looks ahead, I can see it in his face. “What do you want me to call it, Declan? What do you want me to say?” he asks and it’s obvious he’s not doing well with it either. Then it hits me.
“You tell Bethany?” I ask him and he better fucking not have. No one else needs to know. For the love of God, it all just needs to go away.
“Yeah,” he admits.
“What the hell?” I kick back in my seat wanting nothing more than to get out of the fucking car.
“I had to!”
“Had to?” I can barely look at him when he looks back with that look in his eyes. Bethany is his wife, but she’s also worked in a psych ward.
“She might need help,” he says, as if it’s that easy. As if there’s a pill that can take all those thoughts away.
“Like a fucking pill? Like being admitted?”
“I didn’t say that,” he answers.
“She was perfect and I ruined her,” I say the truth out loud. If she’d never met me, she’d be happy and loved. Some nine-to-five bastard would have loved her right. He would have never let anyone hurt her. He wouldn’t have let her think those thoughts.