Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
She starts crying, breaking down, but when I move toward her, she raises her hands and shakes her head. She doesn’t want me anywhere near her. I know why. I know it’s the same reason gnawing through me, the guilt and the pain of what we’ve done, of what I want to keep doing.
“Why this?”
“I promised Ryan I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You have to,” she yells. “This was Dad’s. It’s an heirloom.”
I groan, squeezing my cell phone tightly and making a fist. There’s only so much lying I can do. I’m sorry, Ryan, for everything.
“Ryan was able to get a good trade for a different item. That watch sells at around a third of the price of the item he’s trading it for, but the buyer is so keen on getting this exact watch that he’s willing to do it. Ryan would be a fool to pass it up.”
This makes it worse. Her cheeks are soaked with tears now.
“He’s selling it because it’s a good deal? What’s he getting? A new bike? What, Kai?”
“A first edition of Poems by Emily Dickinson. I think that’s her name. It’s for you. He said…” This next part hurts me. “He wanted to give you something as a sign to start anew, the next chapter in your life. You can keep the book. Sell it. Whatever you want. He said he wanted some light to come from the darkness of your dad’s death.”
“He said that? Really?”
“Word for word.”
She slowly puts the pocket watch on the bike seat, sealed in its wrapping. Her hands tremble as she brushes her hair down and then looks at me for a long time. It’s like she’s trying to kill the part of herself that wants me.
“You were right before,” she says after a long pause, her expression changed now, distant. “We need to pretend this never happened. Let’s go home. It’ll be easier like that. I’ll tell Ryan I forgive him for the fight. Hell, it’s not like I can be angry with him now.”
I shake my head. “I told him I’d deliver the package. That’s what I’m doing.”
“You can take me home first.”
Gritting my teeth, I shake my head again. She’s right. It would be easier this way, with far less risk of us completely losing it. It would mean we could behave ourselves. Maybe—I don’t believe this for a second—we’d be able to forget how good it felt. How right it felt, being together.
“No,” I say. “We’re going to Illinois. Together.”
“You know it would be better to take me home first.” She glares. “Otherwise, we might…”
“We’ll just have to try harder. You’re coming with me.”
She opens her mouth as if to argue but then closes it. She stares at me like she suspects something.
Then she turns and walks toward the lake. I groan and follow her, my heart thudding hard when I think about her being alone. Anytime I think of her without me to back her up, I can’t take it. It hurts, honestly, trying to fit that into my head. To think there might be a day when Ryan asks me to handle business out of state or country again, and I’ll have to leave her.
No damn way. She’s not going anywhere without me. Maybe that makes me possessive as fuck. Do I care? Not right now. As she gets farther and farther away from me, I don’t. Breaking into a jog, I catch up to her and touch her shoulder.
“What, Kai?” she snaps, her eyes glistening like she could break down into sobs at any moment.
“Don’t what me,” I snarl. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I need some space. I need to think.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” I tell her. “We need to keep moving.”
“Unless you’re going to hogtie me to the bike, you should give me a few minutes.”
I grind my teeth. “I could do that, Kay, pretty damn easily. I’ve got rope, and I doubt you could stop me.”
She takes a step forward, glaring up at me. It makes me think of her as a mother, defending our children with that same fierceness in her expression. “If you do that, I’ll hate you forever. And when you drop your guard, I’ll use it to get as far away from you as possible. Just leave me alone.”
She spins, walks over to the lake, picks up a stone, and throws it angrily. I scan the landscape and then walk up beside her. My chest is rising and falling way too fast. My head is full of hurt, thinking about her hating me forever.
She’s being dramatic. She has to be. It’s another sign of our age gap. A woman my age wouldn’t behave in this way. Fuck. No. A woman my age… I can’t think of any other woman, in any context, ever. Just the thought feels like a betrayal. No, it is one.