Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
She wasn’t wrong. I thought I could handle it, that I’d thrive on being able to have all the sex I wanted, but the small moments, those when Emerson opened up to me or was there for me, endeared him to me. He gave me pieces of himself he didn’t give to others. He allowed me inside, and in doing that, I thought it gave him something too. I remembered the look on his face when he was telling me the stories. Emerson didn’t let himself remember those things, and it had felt good to do it.
“I already said this, but it bears repeating: I’m concerned. That man is broken, and you’re all heart. You want to help everyone. You want to be who everyone needs and—”
“No, I don’t.” I sat up, irritation making my movements jerky.
“Yes, you do.”
I kinda did, didn’t I? For Mama, for Molly. For Aunt Sherry, and the people around town, and my coworkers when they needed me. “I don’t want to fight about this. I should head home.” I stood, and she wrapped her hand around my wrist gently.
“I don’t trust him.”
Sometimes I thought Molly worried about me so much, took me under her wing so fiercely because no one else did. She was trying to make up for what I lacked from others around me. “You don’t know him.” There was something about Emerson, and I didn’t know how to put it into words. Or maybe I was just a fool. I believed he wanted to come off like he didn’t care about anything, but I thought he cared too much. That he felt everything more than most, and the only way to handle it was to shut down.
Molly sighed. “Our whole lives would be a lot easier if we could love each other that way, wouldn’t they?”
I chuckled. Wasn’t that the truth. “Life’s never easy, Molls. I’m used to it by now. All we can do is make the best of it.”
“You’re better at that than most.”
It was what I’d always done. Made the best of Dad leaving, made the best of always feeling a little different from others, made the best of Mama and her struggles. It was the story of my life. “Love you.” I bent and kissed her cheek.
“Love you too. Now can we watch movies and eat popcorn? You know how I love popcorn.”
“That sounds just about perfect to me.”
It was late, and I couldn’t sleep. That wasn’t normally a problem I had. It didn’t matter how much of it I got, I could still manage to pass out if given the opportunity. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Molly had said and about my weekend with Emerson. He’d fallen asleep on the couch with me. I’d given him a warning, and he hadn’t gotten up to move. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
The question made me feel like an inexperienced kid. There I was, lying awake at night, analyzing our interactions, but how could I not? I’d never had this before. I’d never had sex with someone more than once, and I’d never dated someone I was attracted to. Not that I was dating Em. That was a dangerous way of thinking, as was calling him by the nickname. It felt too close, too personal, when we were just supposed to be about orgasms and the exchange of money.
I wondered if he was awake too, and somehow, I knew he was. I wasn’t a fool. I didn’t think he was lying there thinking of me the way I was him, but he was up, feelin’ guilty for whatever it was he felt guilty for and hating himself.
I wished it were possible to like him enough for the both of us…which was maybe the dumbest thing I’d ever thought.
So I rolled over and picked up my phone from the nightstand. It wasn’t like I could sleep anyway. As soon as I opened it, I saw a text from a few hours before. I hadn’t checked my phone at all after leaving Molly’s.
I clicked the message icon, figuring it was from her, only to see it was from Emerson.
“Holy shit.” I shot up in bed like the damn thing had electrocuted me. Emerson texted me? He’d never done that before, and the only thing I could think of was that I’d been right. Things hadn’t been the same for us this weekend. He felt it too, and now he was tellin’ me we couldn’t hook up anymore.
Dread weighed down my gut.
Part of me didn’t want to look. If I pretended I hadn’t seen it, I could just go to his place on Friday like nothing had changed. But I didn’t have the patience for that. I already felt like I was going to burst out of my skin, so I clicked.