Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“Eden, need you to come here,” I grated as soon as she answered.
“I’m already in the parking lot. Trent brought me.”
“Good, Tessa needs you.”
Because I couldn’t stay.
I should have known…should have known…
No matter how hard I might try to change it. Be someone different. My past would be there to overcome. To overthrow.
Because there was no redemption for men like me.
FORTY-ONE
TESSA
I guessed I was no stranger to grief. To the way everything felt excruciatingly heavy.
Suffocating.
Oppressive.
Your breaths so strained it was a labor to draw them into your aching lungs.
All while you were just…hollow.
Carved out.
Gutted.
Nothing inside.
Maybe I knew the feeling, but I was sure I’d never felt it so distinctly as right then.
Chained, yet floating away.
Wandering through the desolation with no direction.
No sight.
Staring blankly through the large plate glass window that overlooked Eden’s lush backyard. Her lawn was manicured, and the hedges trimmed, and she had at least a gazillion pots overflowing with flowers on the patio and filling the planters that lined the fence.
An oasis cradled by the forest beyond.
Beautiful.
But I wasn’t sure anything would ever feel truly beautiful again.
Eden set a cup of coffee in front of me, where I sat at the breakfast nook under the window. Easing back, she wrapped her arms around me from behind, hugging me so tight that my aching chest squeezed.
“I am so sorry, Tessa. God, I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t believe this happened.” Forcing the words through the disorder felt impossible, the thought too thin, too vague.
But I couldn’t…I couldn’t believe it.
Bobby was gone.
Gone.
Without reason or warning. The small parts of him that had still remained ripped away.
And in the middle of it, Milo had walked.
Left me.
Without reason or warning, either.
Tears ran hot down my face, but I didn’t have the strength to wipe them, the mess dripping off my chin onto the pajama shirt Eden had given me when she and Trent had brought me back here at close to four o’clock this morning.
Hours had been spent with Bobby before the coroner had come. When they’d taken him away, the only thing I could do was wander the parking lot, refusing to get in the car with Trent and Eden.
I’d been lost.
Dazed.
Numb.
Then a rush of anger had hit me so hard I’d buckled in two, and I’d demanded Trent and Eden drive me to Milo’s place so I could find out how he could just leave me.
I’d needed him. Needed him to be there with me during one of the most painful times of my life.
Agony carved through my spirit.
He promised me.
Promised.
I didn’t understand.
Didn’t understand how the man who was supposed to be my person had abandoned me, too.
I choked over a sob, and Eden squeezed me tighter. “It’s okay…let it out. Let it out, Tessa.”
I clutched at her hands where they were locked around me.
“I don’t understand. How could Bobby just…die? He was fine. I saw him two days ago, and he was fine.” My voice croaked with the confusion as another sob erupted.
“I know. I don’t understand, either. But they’ll get answers for you. I promise.”
My nod was erratic. “I’m so sad, Eden.”
She just kept holding me, my friend who had always been there for me, the one who’d never let me down, the one who loved my crazy and supported my neurosis and never judged me for being myself.
“I’m so sad, too,” she murmured with her cheek pressed to mine.
“And Milo. How could he be such a selfish, horrible jerk? I thought he was the one, Eden. My Ace. The one who would always be there. Stand by me and hold me up. Isn’t that what love is supposed to be about?”
I could feel her bewilderment, her uncertainty, and she peeled herself away and pulled a chair close so she was facing me. “I am not making excuses for him, Tessa, because I’m really pissed, too. That was a giant dick move, but there was something going on with him last night. I heard it in his voice when he sent out the SOS call to me, and he could barely stand when he came stumbling out of the building. Trent tried to talk to him, but he shrugged him off, got in his car, and took off.”
“But why?”
He was supposed to be there for me.
Through thick and thin.
Through everything.
Even when it was hard or it hurt.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
She handed me a tissue that I wadded up and pressed to my nose. “I think I need to lie down.”
Eden squeezed my hand. “You do whatever you need. I’ll be right here.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m your ride or die, remember?”
I nodded through the tears.
“The best one I could ask for.”
She hugged me fiercely before I stood and fumbled my way back upstairs to the room that she’d always told me was mine if I ever needed it. If I needed a safe place to stay.