Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
This time, she didn’t even flinch. “God, I hope not. I haven’t had a manicure in ages.”
I glared at her.
She pushed up onto her toes and glared right back. A burst of laughter escaped as she dropped to her heels. “You need to relax. I’m not trying to marry you, Ramsey. You’re a felon without a job. Even I have higher standards than that.”
Yeah. It stung, but at least she recognized the truth.
She strolled past me into the room, and fuck my life, I was right about the way those jeans hugged her ass.
“What are you doing?” I rumbled.
She pointed to the picture of us hanging on the wall. “I’m surprised you left it up.”
I’d wanted to rip that damn thing down as soon as I’d seen it. Serious as a heart attack, Nora had threatened to tell my parole officer she found a bag of weed in my stuff if I took it down. I didn’t believe she’d send me back to prison, but Nora could be crazy as shit sometimes, so I’d opted to hang a T-shirt over it while I slept instead.
“Do you remember when this was taken?” Thea asked.
Last week of tenth grade. After Nora’s middle school graduation. We had gone out to grab burgers. Nora ditched us halfway through dinner to hang out with some of her friends, so we went home early. I snuck in Thea’s window. We made out for over an hour and then I finger-fucked her until she came on my hand. I left with blue balls and a shit-eating grin.
“Nope.”
“It was after Nora’s middle school graduation. You didn’t ask me to go that night. You didn’t have to. I went because the three of us were a family. We did everything together and that wasn’t because you were in love with me. Long before there was love, there was friendship, Ramsey. We relied on each other. Trusted each other. Cared about each other in ways that had nothing to do with holding hands or kissing.” She sucked in a shaky breath that felt like sandpaper to my soul. “I don’t care if you don’t want to be with me, Ramsey. I’m pissed as hell that you cut me out of your life the way you did. I’m angry that you would do that to me at a time when I was dealing with a lot of shit. You killed a kid because he hurt me. But what you did, the way you did it, it hurt worse than anything Josh ever did to me.”
Bile clawed up the back of my throat. She was wrong. So fucking wrong. I’d given her a gift. One she couldn’t understand because she was so damn stubborn she refused to accept it.
I bit the inside of my cheek and distracted myself with the metallic taste of blood. “I don’t love you, and I never did. I was a teenage boy trying to get in your pants. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t say.”
“You fucking liar,” she hissed.
“I’m sorry if that hurts you. But you weren’t the only one with a lot of shit going on in your life. I’d just stared down the possibility of the death penalty before being sentenced to sixteen years in prison. Do you have any concept of how fucking scary that is? ’Cause it’s terrifying.” I stabbed a finger in her direction, praying she couldn’t see it tremble.
She needed to understand. I had to make her understand. Even if it meant breaking her again in the process. It was better that way.
My voice rose with every sentence. “I wasn’t cruel when I wrote you that letter. I didn’t tell you I hated you. I didn’t tell you to fuck off. I let you go. That’s it. But you wouldn’t fucking stop. All the letters and trying to get Nora involved. That’s what made me hate you. So if you want to sit here and have a bitchfest about what happened to us, maybe go look in the mirror. Your high school boyfriend broke up with you, and you’ve spent the last twelve years being pissed about it.” I threw my hands out to the sides. “Get over it, Thea. There are real-world problems happening right now and this is not one of them.”
I waited for the fallout. The screaming. The fighting. The insults. A sinkhole to swallow me. Anything.
She just…stood there. Arms limp at her sides. Disappointment sparkling in her eyes. Lips pursed so tight, as if they were furious and still begging to be kissed.
And I just…stood there, withering into nothingness and silently imploring her to believe me.
It was all a lie. Every single word. There had never been a point in my life that I hadn’t been in love with Thea Hull. It was exactly why I let her go.