Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Where do you think we’ll be in ten years?” she asked. “Together, right?”
My arms hugged her tighter. I liked that plan, not that it was much of a plan. “Yeah.”
“Or at least friends. You might want things I don’t want. A wife. Children. A normal life.” She laughed. “You’re going to be the best dad. Nothing like your dad. And you’re going to let your kids do and be whatever they want. And you’re never going to cheat on your wife. You’re never going to rape a stranger and leave her on the ground in a parking lot.”
I grunted a painful laugh. “Uh … I certainly hope I’m not a rapist. Maybe we should elevate my life’s goals to something greater than the simple lack of being a rapist and a cheater.”
“I said you’d have a wife and kids. That’s good, right? I mean … you want that, don’t you?”
I wanted her … however I could have her. That seemed like a long shot at best. My life was slowly unraveling. My grades. My desire to be anything more than “not my dad.”
It didn’t matter how Josie came into the world; she was going to do great things and make it a better place. Josie made everything better.
“What do you want?” I asked without answering her question.
She rested her head back onto my shoulder, staring at the starry sky while the screeching of crickets and katydids filled the air. “I think I want to be a doctor. I don’t know what area of specialty, but something that’s … I don’t know. Something hard or something that most doctors don’t want to do.”
“Like a butt doctor?”
Josie giggled. “A proctologist? Maybe. Or maybe a podiatrist. Stare at feet all day.”
“At least a gynecologist gets to see babies.”
Again, she giggled. “Yeah, nothing good comes out of the butt or hides between toes. And when I’m not doing gross stuff, I’ll come watch you play baseball. Maybe I’ll be best friends with your wife.”
I had no answer to that. It was hard to imagine that our sneaking around, hiding our relationship from friends and her parents, was going to end in just … friendship.
“But you don’t have a wife yet.” She turned her head and grinned at me.
“Not that I know of.” I grinned back at her.
“Do you still want to kiss me now that you know I have evil in my blood?”
“You have evil in your blood. I have asshole in mine. Maybe we were made for each other.”
Her smile swelled. “Maybe,” she whispered.
I kissed her. After a while, we repositioned, lying on the blanket.
Kissing.
Our legs scissored.
And our future uncertain at best.
CHAPTER TEN
“I was a terrible daughter,” I said to my mom after my dad left for work. We sat on the deck in our robes, sipping coffee, watching pedestrians pass on the trail that used to be dirt. It’s now a beautiful green space, and my tree is still there.
“What are you talking about?”
I blow at the steam. “My junior year, when you told me about the rape, I was so self-absorbed, thinking only about myself. I felt so angry and betrayed. And just … lost. I felt sorry for myself. For myself. And you were the one who was raped.” I shake my head. “That was really terrible of me. But that’s who I am. I’m a terrible person.”
“Stop it.” She reaches over, resting her hand on my leg and squeezing it. “Look at me.”
I lift my gaze to hers. The same question swirls in my head.
What did she ever do to deserve me?
“If I told you dandelions are taking over the neighborhood, and you took a walk, all you’d focus on are the dandelions. It wouldn’t matter if there were ten or ten million. That’s all your eyes would see because I planted the idea in your mind. It’s a distorted reality. You never thought you had bad blood before I told you about the night you were conceived. You never thought you were a serial killer until some psychic told you. The fact is you were a child conceived from rape. And maybe … just maybe your soul carries a piece of a man who did awful things over a hundred years ago. But that’s not who you are.”
I don’t know who I am. My mind won’t shut off and let me go back to the woman I was before the shooting. It took years for me to accept what happened to my mom and what that meant for me.
“Sometimes, I feel like it’s too much. It’s exhausting waking up every morning with a hangover from my dreams. My head hurts, and the anxiety is like nothing I have ever experienced. I don’t want to eat pills for the rest of my life to keep from feeling. I don’t want to spend every waking hour second-guessing my choices, wondering if I’ve just had a bad day or if I’m in a bad mood because I’m a bad person. And I can’t un-read what I’ve already read. If reincarnation is a real thing, then it explains why a five-year-old can sit down at a piano and play Mozart without having ever taken a lesson or without having ever heard Mozart. So then the question I have is … what happens when I do something without realizing what or why I’m doing it?”