Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Anything that would take my mind off of her and what we once shared. Like throwing the ball with my son or putting in an extra hour on the job. Now they were both gone, my escapes.
Two months after I buried what was left of my family and my past, Shelly was the first thing that came to my mind. Followed hard by my burning need for revenge.
The two fought for precedence and neither won, they were both needful to me, to my very existence. I’d put one off while getting a head start on the other, but now it was time. I couldn’t go one more day without reclaiming her. I felt like I was suffocating without her. And dammit I’d denied myself long enough.
I’d been giving myself time to get the worst of my anger under control before making my move. I wasn’t sure of my reception, though I’d already made up my mind that that wasn’t going to be a deterrent.
But she deserved better than me coming to her the way I had been the first few months, especially after what I’d already put her through.
I’d looked her up a few weeks after I came back from the brink. After I’d played around with the idea of eating my gun. That night I’d sat alone in the dark feeling like a beaten man. I was feeling like I’d already given my best and there was nowhere to go but down, and then her face flashed before my eyes and I felt…something. The first something I’d felt in a long damn time.
Before I could change my mind I’d gone in hot. I did something I’d fought hard not to do for the last thirteen years. I used my badge to dig up everything I could on her.
I knew she hadn’t ever been married, not that I would’ve given a fuck, she’s mine she’s always been mine. Our lives might have taken a turn thirteen years ago, but I was about to get that shit back on track.
I knew that she wasn’t involved in anything serious at the moment but that there was some clueless asshole sniffing around her; too fucking bad.
I knew that I was still in love with her and that after what the fuck life had done to me, she was my reward. Fuck anything or anyone that tried to get in my way.
I knew all I needed to know and now I was going to bring her home. I fought back the little bit of conscience I had left and headed for the door. Time to start living again.
7
Nick
I hopped on the back of my ride and rode into the night. The closer I got to my destination, the lighter I felt. I forgot the day’s happenings; put everything else out of my mind but what laid ahead.
This could be the most important thing I do for the rest of my life so there was no room for screw-ups. My heart had feeling for the first time in a long time. Things that I had long buried, memories that I’d shied away from for fear of going over the edge, were now free to play out and I gave them free rein.
I remembered the way she looked when she came up to me at the funeral. The last time I’d seen her before that there was betrayal and hurt, this time there was pain and compassion.
I’d almost buckled right then and there, but grief had me in a chokehold. And then she’d wrapped her little arms around me and I’d felt that old familiar tremble in her limbs. The one she’d once told me after making love to her that it was my affect on her. I wonder if she still gets the butterflies too?
For that split second that she was in my arms I had felt something other than the numbness I’d been carrying around after seeing what had been done to my family.
Then guilt had hit me in the gut and I pulled back, said thanks for coming and moved on. Dee deserved at least a proper mourning, I owed her at least that much.
I wasn’t even letting myself think about my boy back then, I couldn’t. You wanna know how strong or how weak you are, the loss of a child would test your mettle beyond anything you can ever imagine. I almost didn’t make it.
That day after I’d thanked her for coming, after letting her go, still lost in a fog, I’d felt empty and alone. I remember wanting to hold onto her because in a funny way she was like a connection to what I’d lost, part of the life I’d had with them.
But I knew it wasn’t right. Wrong fucking time, so I withdrew and retreated into the darkness of grief. There were times I didn’t think I would survive the pain. Nights sitting alone in the dark thinking about all I’d lost. Mad at the world because it seemed life was always fucking with me in one-way or another.