Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
“It’s done. It was not my intention to hurt you, or for you to develop feelings for me—”
“Shut up. You’re a fucking liar. Do you even see yourself? I know you have feelings for me. What the fuck happened to you?” She wipes her cheeks, and her eyes search mine.
My head is pounding. “You’re wrong. I’m a one-person show. Your mother is the same. Together, we make sense.”
“She fucked my high school boyfriend. She’s like a black widow. How can you stand to be inside…” Her eyes widen as if she’s picturing us together.
“I did not set out to hurt you.” I turn.
“Well, you did,” she screams at my back.
“Stay in your room, Raven.” I shut her door, the music and laughter guiding me toward my bedroom.
Because this is it.
This is who I truly am. Leaning against my door frame, I steady myself and watch Rachel. Glass of champagne in one hand while she flicks her tongue over Emily’s tight nipples. Emily’s eyes dart to mine. Smiling, she parts her legs, showing me her wet cunt.
Nothing. I feel nothing. I grind my teeth at how fucking pathetic this is.
“Look who finally decided to join us,” she coos as Rachel raises her head.
“Jett, baby, finally. I was beginning to wonder if you got lost.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. There is no sparkle, no deep pools of sapphires to lose myself in. I never got her sapphires, never caressed her skin with her wearing nothing but them.
I never did a lot of things…
I push off the doorway and untuck my shirt, walking farther in. Rachel’s hands move inside Emily’s legs.
“I got her all ready for you,” she says, watching me unbutton my shirt and toss it to the floor.
“Get up,” I grunt.
Emily leaps up, making room for me to sit. Her scent is not as repulsive as Rachel’s flowers, but it’s not what I seek.
Like a king, I sit and let their hands touch me while I wait.
One.
Two.
Three.
I look up.
She stands in the doorway. Our eyes collide, and her pain almost drowns me, but that can’t happen—I’m already dead.
And now, it’s done.
RAVEN
This can’t be happening. My mind scrambles to my earlier phone conversation with Cher, when she told me this would happen, that I never should have told him I loved him if I didn’t want it to end.
But I can’t pretend that I’m okay with him being with my mom. He needed to know.
“I did not set out to hurt you,” he says.
This might be the moment I finally snap. All my life, everyone has picked my mother and now, even he has.
He picked her.
Her!
“Well, you did,” I scream, because I want him to bleed, feel something, not just speak in clichés. He didn’t want to hurt me? How fucking pathetic.
I watch, almost frozen, as he turns and walks away, and my heart suddenly pounds in my temples. He’s leaving me.
“Stay in your room, Raven.” His voice is gravelly and strong, and the knife that has been hovering around my chest finally slices it open and penetrates.
“This is not real. I can’t be that much of an idiot.” Sinking back into the chair, I look around, but everything is blurry through my tears.
“No.” I stand. “You’re lying,” I whisper, angrily wiping away my tears. The time for crying is over. I need to fight.
I can’t lose him. I have to stop him. This can’t be how it ends. I run to my door and swing it open, instantly hearing crappy music coming from his room. Goose bumps start on my neck and travel down my arms as I move closer.
“No.” I choke on my words, because he told me to stay away, and for a split second I hesitate. Am I ready to face his truths?
“Jett, baby, finally. I was beginning to wonder if you got lost.” My mother’s voice makes me gag, but I continue, knowing that I should stop.
Stop, Raven.
Why won’t I stop? This is going to hurt me, but it’s as if I’m gone, on autopilot, placing one foot in front of another until I reach for the wall to steady me.
The door is open. The lights are on, and I take one more step…
That’s when I see it all. I see him for who he truly is.
This is when I should leave, or scream, but I don’t. I just stare at my mother in some red lingerie, licking the nipple of a blond woman sitting naked in a chair.
Frozen.
I stand, watching him untuck his shirt, demanding they move. And then he sits, and my world that has never been perfect, but was at least bearable, crumbles.
No, my world explodes. And not because of the hands reaching to unzip his slacks, or my mother reaching to touch the other woman’s cunt.
No, all that is mere background drama in a horrific play. What makes me stop breathing is him.