Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 110549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
I swallowed thickly, feeling a bunch of different emotions running through me. A part of me wanted to be ecstatic that maybe she did actually love me, but I knew that was stupid. My mother didn’t love anyone but herself. The only reason everything got left to me was because she literally didn’t have a single other soul to leave it all to.
I was pretty sure it had nearly killed her to put me in her will at all.
“I just need you to sign here,” the attorney told me when I stayed silent. “Once you do, everything is yours. Your mother just asked that she be cremated.”
I nodded, signing on the lines I needed to. I just wanted this over with so I could get the hell out of this god-forsaken town. I could already feel the air of the town burning me as if I were in fucking hell.
My truck spluttered, coming to a dead stop on the road. I was three miles outside of town. I had signed the papers and collected my mother’s ashes as fast as I fucking could and high-tailed it out of that damn place. I would handle everything else from home—her car, the house, all her shit.
But now, my fucking truck had given out on me.
I banged my head on the steering wheel after managing to steer my truck to the side of the road. I clenched my hands around the steering wheel, squeezing my eyes shut. “Why me?” I asked quietly.
I pulled out my phone, only to find a dead battery. Cursing myself for not thinking to charge my phone, I tossed it into the floorboard where my purse was and slipped out of my truck. It was dead silent and dark around me. All I could hear was the wind rustling the overgrown fields on either side of me and the chirping of crickets.
It honestly felt like something out of a fucking horror movie, which would just be a perfect ending to my day.
I sighed and let the tailgate down, jumping up onto it and taking a seat, rubbing my eyes tiredly. I was exhausted. I really just wanted to get back to the city and crawl into my bed at my apartment.
I should have just told that attorney to donate all of that shit to charity instead of coming back here. My truck giving out on me was fucking proof that this damn town was bad luck for me. Once it got its claws stuck into you, they were there forever.
And those claws were trying to keep me here.
I heard a loud roar of an engine, and I looked up to see a classic Ford Mustang making its way down the road. The car came to a slow stop in front of my truck before pulling over. I slid down from the tailgate, moving around the side of my truck, hoping it was someone willing to help me and not a serial killer.
My breath hitched in my throat and all of the blood left my face when I saw the driver angle out of the car.
Jessie fucking Harold.
He looked up at me as he shut his car door, halting in his tracks as he stared at me. “West?” he demanded, his voice tinged with anger. And I knew I only had about a split second more before he fucking exploded.
I swallowed nervously, shoving my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Hi,” I squeaked. Because what the hell else could I say? I’d ghosted him.
“Two fucking years,” he snarled, suddenly angry as he stormed over to me. I swallowed nervously but stood my ground. Despite his rage, I knew he’d never hurt me. “You fucking ghosted me, West. I haven’t heard a fucking word from you since your hearing where they fucking released you on goddamn good behavior.”
I took a step back from him, nervousness filling my veins. “You wanted to run to another fucking city? Cool,” he sneered down at me. “But you fucking know that I was the last goddamn person you had to cut off, West. I promised you that I would always have your goddamn back. If that meant you needed to get the fuck out of this fucking town and start somewhere new, I wouldn’t have fucking stopped you.”
“I had to do it for myself, Jessie,” I defended, tears burning in my eyes. I hated it when he got angry with me. I knew that I did this shit to myself, but I really hated it when Jessie got like this with me. I couldn’t handle it.
“Why?” he growled. “Give me one good fucking reason why,” he demanded.
I didn’t want him to know. I couldn’t fucking tell him. But if there was one thing that I knew about Jessie, it was that he wouldn’t stop until he had his answers. And Jessie could read me like a damn book.