Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Yup, it’s time to press the backs of my hands to my eyes—hard—because if I don’t get a handle on this shit, the floodgates are going to burst wide open, and years of trauma are going to come spilling out, and Remi in no way, shape or form, deserves to be the one to take the brunt of it.
Frick on a stick; this is mortifying.
“Sullivan, I…”
She’s using my full name again. I have to do something. Right now. In a second. Okay, in another second.
Her touch is a light whisper on my shoulder. I can’t see it or her because I have the heels of my hands pressed into my eyes, trying to stop the leakage from happening, and it’s like holding water in a bucket full of holes. That never works out, FYI.
“Just wait here for a minute, okay?”
By the time I gather myself together enough to tear my hands away, her door’s open, and she’s already gone, walking up the steps to the front door where my mom is standing and watching everything.
It’s official. This is how I die. Right here, in Remi’s car.
I watch her gesture to my mom and then the car before my mom shakes her head. Remi takes her hand, and at last, they hug. My mom’s tall, still-lithe body presses into Remi’s much smaller one, and her bright orange hair sticks out a good half a foot above Remi’s shoulder, which she affectionately pats before Remi walks back to the car.
Like a steel beam falling off a building right as I had the misfortune to step below it, it hits me that Remi knows my mom so much better than I do. I had the first eighteen years of my life with her, yet I barely knew her at all. Remi’s had that and all the ones that came after. I’m glad. I’m glad Remi was like the second daughter my mother never had and that she was there for Kimmy over the years. Nanny too. She’s watched over my family and been a part of it. I know if I asked Remi, she’d say they were the ones doing her a favor since I know Kimmy fought hard for her to be included after her parents went bankrupt and were no longer part of the neighborhood or regular elite social circle that was made up, for the most part, of sharks scenting blood in the water.
I know Kimmy fought my parents for the tuition so that Remi could attend the same private school they went to together. Kimmy never abandoned Remi. My parents probably paid for Remi’s college too, and she works with my sister now. She probably feels like she owes our family something when really, I think it’s the other way around. You can’t put a price tag on someone like Remi.
She slides back into the car and gives me the softest, judgment-free look. It’s a look that says she’s sorry for my pain and sorry I’m the one hurting. That she’s so sorry about how my dad was an asshole and sorry for everything else she doesn’t know about. Her look says if she could just do something to make it better, she would do it in a heartbeat.
The world does not deserve people like Remelia Samson.
“Where should I take you?” she asks in a whisper. The car is still running from when she tried to drive away. She reverses much more calmly now and heads down the street.
“I ruined dinner,” I mumble, barely hearing myself say the words as I fixate on the passenger window. It seems like the safest place to look.
“It’s okay. Your mom understood. I talked to her. She’s worried about you. She knows you’re upset, and she knows why, obviously. More than I do. Anyway, I promised we’d come back another time.”
“Did you promise you’d look after me tonight too?” Snarky and bitter is not how I meant for that to come out.
Remi doesn’t rise to it. “Yup, you bet your bottom dollar I did.”
I think the appropriate response would be to just shut up now.
“So, where do you want to go? I can take you back to Nanny’s. Or…or we could just keep driving aimlessly until you feel like talking. If you want to talk, that is. We could go to a nice park, but that’s rather, um, public. Or we could go back to my house. My parents are at a softball game tonight, playing in their rec league, not watching, which means a healthy amount of chicken wings, burgers, and beers after the game. They won’t be home until late.”
Remi is so small and sweet. She’s like sunshine, happiness, and liquid cheer personified. She doesn’t deserve to have me unload this on her. She shouldn’t even know about this. I told myself that no one would know. My dad made sure no one found out, but he’s not here anymore. He’s not here, and I’ll never get to make things right with him even though I am. Yeah, I’m here, Remi’s here, and she knows. I can’t just unsay what I blurted.