Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112449 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112449 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Back on campus, I met my professors after class for the work I missed. The guys told them I was traumatized after the events of Ruckus Royale and needed time off. Actually, they weren’t the first to call out with that excuse. Professor Valdez was taking a short leave of absence. There was speculation on if he’d come back at the end of it.
End of Civil Rights, I waved bye to the teaching assistant, turned off my phone, and ducked out of the building through one of the side entrances. I didn’t put it past Cairo to be waiting outside the door with leash in hand. I couldn’t go back to the Bedlam Boy house just yet, and I wasn’t about to get in the argument about me needing to head out and they not knowing why.
I made it off campus and passed through the square. My bus stop waited for me with its pack of hopeful pigeons and a bus schedule that faded to blurred text years ago. Frankie honked her way up.
“Rainey, love. Good to see you.”
“Good to see you.”
“Out to the farm again,” she said. “What do you do there all day?”
“Between you and me, I’ve got the old generator and some swap shop appliances tucked away. I’d move back in if it wasn’t for the whole no-running-water thing.”
“Right,” she said with a laugh. “That thing.”
I settled in for the forty-minute ride. Frankie carried me all over town, dropping off elder riders pulling shopping wagons, and university students making it back to their student apartments.
This was the part of the trip I loved—other than talking to Frankie. Seeing my town pass by the window was the most relaxing part of my day.
There was still something of the old Crystal Canyon about Bedlam. Historical buildings survived like Westchester Drumlins, a general store, an old-timey barbershop, and a hotel that they renovated inside, but outside maintained the original stonework. It was trippy passing a structure that stood before your grandparents were born, sandwiched between a vegan restaurant and yoga studio.
But that was Bedlam. A town moving forward, and dragging its past along for the ride.
“Looks like you’re feeling better.”
I raised my head, catching Frankie’s knowing smile in the mirror.
“I am better than I was,” I admitted. Last time I stepped off this bus, I resolved to kill myself. I’d say I’m doing much better.
“I moved in with some—” My tongue stuck trying to say friends. It wouldn’t move at all for boyfriends. “—guys,” I finished. “I was in a bad place. They’re helping me see that I can be forgiven.”
“Course you can. Everyone deserves forgiveness, love.”
“Even—”
“No,” she sliced in. “Not my son-of-a-bitch ex.”
Giggling, I hopped off the bus, waving bye to Frankie rattling down the dusty road. My smile faded, turning back to my gate. It wasn’t being home. It was the reason I was here.
Climbing up the rickety porch, I lifted our mailbox lid and found three black letters waiting for me.
The letters have always come to the farmhouse. Despite me having moved out a long time before they began coming. It was proof of how long Scott Cavendish had been following me. He knew how often I came out to my abandoned farm far out of town. It was the perfect place to leave messages for me without being seen.
I broke the new lock on the door and went inside.
“Fuck!”
The estate agent hadn’t stopped with the door. My microwave, lamp, and the little things I snuck back inside were gone. I ran downstairs to check the generator and found that gone too.
“Point Cruella,” I hissed.
The woman’s actual name was Ella Franklin, but that’s because someone would’ve called child services on her parents if they wrote her full name on the birth certificate.
Heart pounding, the unopened letters crumpled in my hand. It had become my routine to sit in the place where I’d always felt safe and read the next horrible letter. The smell of warm, buttery popcorn and the soft glow dispelling the dark around me gave me the strength to break the seal.
Dropping the letters on the floor, I headed out and went straight to Black Widow Hill. The flowers I collected on the way were laid on the unmarked grave.
“Sorry I’ve been gone for a while.” I sat cross-legged on the ground, plucking blades of grass. “My suicide attempt ended in a chase through the forest and then semi-voluntary imprisonment. That sounds like an oxymoron.”
I fell back on the sea of green, gazing up at the evening sky. “Is it weird that I named you in my suicide note? The thought of you lying here until the next town rises in place of Bedlam and no one knowing you’re here was too sad to bear.
“I can’t help wondering about your family. Where are they? Are they looking for you? Did you have a job that you one day didn’t come back from? A home? Are you from Bedlam, or just a traveler blowing through town? And of course, who are you? What’s your name?”