Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
I grin when he buries his face in the crook of my neck. “You paint, Colten? You painted that cat?”
“She asked. I said I’d give it a go.”
“Give it a go …” I laugh. “Are you bad at anything?”
“Apparently, I’m bad at convincing you to stay the night. I think I’ve been bad at convincing you to do anything … ever. You always leave me guessing where I stand in your life.”
I turn in his arms, sliding my hands into his back pockets. “I said I’d marry you. What more do you want?”
“I want you to want to marry me.” He gathers my hair and pulls it off my shoulders, giving it a playful tug.
Lifting onto my toes, I press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. Taking several steps backward toward the front door, I shake my head and turn the handle. “Colten Mosley, you should know me better by now.” I turn and head toward my car without shutting the front door. “I would never do anything I didn’t want to do.”
Just as I unlock my car, he calls, “So you want to marry me?”
“So it would seem.”
“Fine. Stop begging. I’ll marry you, Josephine Watts.”
Hours later, I wake in a sweat, heart ready to burst from my chest and a clawing panic eating me alive. Something is so very wrong with me. For the first time, I question if I was supposed to live. Maybe Colten made a mistake by saving me. These are not dreams. They are fragments of reality. Whose reality? I don’t know.
Is this a warning? Has the future been given to me? My mind doesn’t work this way. I thrive on reason and explanation. Science. Testing. Solid data.
There are so many girls. So many bodies.
Grabbing my computer from my nightstand, I open it and start searching for answers. Two unsuccessful hours later, a new email chimes, and I open it.
It’s from the parapsychologist I messaged in desperation a while back.
Namaste, Josephine.
I have a feeling you’ve come to the right place. I can see you on the 14th.
3:00 p.m.
Athelinda
She left her address—in Berkeley, California.
I’m not flying to California. Even thinking about it makes me want to commit myself to a mental institution. I might have considered a day drive, but there’s no way I can justify airfare to meet with a person I found from a fourth page internet search.
Dear Athelinda,
Thank you for replying to my message. However, I live in Illinois. I will continue to look for help closer to me.
Regards,
Josephine
I stare at the time on my computer. 3:25 a.m.
Again, my email chimes. It’s Athelinda. I realize she’s on West Coast time, but it’s still the middle of the night there.
Josephine,
It’s two weeks out. If you’re experiencing what I feel you’re experiencing, it will not get better. It will get more intense. I’ll save the date and time for you.
Athelinda
What she “feels” I’m experiencing? I’ve sent her two brief emails. How can she possibly have any sort of feeling about me or my situation?
I don’t respond. It would seem like I’m arguing with her. There’s no sense in engaging her anymore. I’m not going.
Sighing, I close my computer and rub my eyes before nestling back under the covers. My hand stretches across the bed to the empty spot.
I miss him.
I’ve missed him for seventeen years.
Colten wants to know where he stands in my life? In the middle. He’s always in the middle of my thoughts with every other thought tripping over him.
Do I want to get married? No.
Do I want to be a wife? No.
Those are basic facts. Always have been.
Do I want to marry Colten? Do I want to be his wife?
Those are different questions. He’s the exception to everything. He’s always been the exception.
I’ve never liked carrot cake, but I love his mom’s carrot cake. It’s the exception. I don’t know why. Is there a secret ingredient?
What’s Colten’s secret ingredient? I don’t think I’ll ever know. It’s just something.
CHAPTER FORTY
Colten has a busy week preparing to be away from work for a few days for our trip to Nashville, so I don’t see him.
I fall into the black hole of the internet. Every time I get lost there, I emerge with two possible conclusions: I either have a legitimate mental illness, or I have a brain tumor that the neurologist missed.
Reading someone else’s mind is a distant third, but I don’t like that one because I don’t believe that’s possible, and therefore it makes me feel mentally ill. Also, it imparts a responsibility to figure out whose mind I’m reading before they follow through with these murders.
On Thursday, Alicia stops by with tacos and a sinful chocolate cake.
“You look so good. Are you feeling as good as you look?” she asks when I take the cake from her and close the front door.