Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
* * *
Sept 6
* * *
Today was really hard. I think it’s my karma. I deserve it. If I’m honest with you, I’m really struggling and I’m lonely and I don’t really know what to do, Cill. I didn’t get the job at Mac’s Hardware. I don’t know where else to apply. I don’t know what to do, and I want to call you so damn bad, because I know you’d know. You always know, Cill. But if I hear your voice … I just can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I’m too damn sad all the time. Can’t we just go back? I wish we could just go back and we’d never go to the club that night. I wish the car had broken down. I wish a storm had flooded the street.
I hate the club. I hate what they did to you. I hate my father. I hate them all. All but you and Reed.
My eyes are ripped from the page as Cill speaks and closes the notebook. It’s only then that I realize the emotion in his gaze.
“They should have taken care of you.” His voice is deathly low.
Before I can even speak, the breath stolen from my lungs, he continues, “I went away, taking the fall for them and they knew who you were to me.”
“Cill—” I start to argue that they did in a way. For a moment they pretended at least, but he cuts me off.
“No, you weren’t okay and where the fuck were they?”
“Reed was—” I swallow the words and instead place both palms on Cill's chest as he drops the notebooks to the counter. It takes everything I have to steady my breathing.
“We’ll go,” Cill states. “The two of us.”
“What?” I whisper.
“The clubhouse. It’s time for you to go back.”
“Things changed when you went away.” My voice shakes a little. Lots of things have changed. One that’s irrefutable is that I left that world. I don’t belong there anymore.
“I said we’re going.”
“Cill—” Anxiousness overwhelms me. “I don’t—”
“Do you work today?” he questions.
“No.” I shake my head with the whispered word.
“Good,” he says with finality, tapping the notebooks on the counter once before turning his back to me and heading toward the stairs, both books still firmly in his grip. “Get dressed. We’re going.”
Cillian
Which happened first, she left me or the club left her to fend for herself?
My text goes unanswered. Reed saw it, though; it’s marked as seen. He’s my best friend. Betrayal ran deep the drive over as I constantly checked to be sure he hadn’t responded. I grew up in the life of loyalty and family.
Where the fuck was that for me? Where was it for Kat? She’s not the one who betrayed the club. We were kids at best. My father’s words scream at me as I recall that night.
He begged me to run, to be anywhere but on the scene when the cops arrived. I should have listened to my old man. Regret is a bitch but betrayal … it’s unforgivable in this world.
The entire way to the club, Kat was silent and if I pressed a subject, she’d only give me one-word answers. She was too busy picking at the sleeves of her burgundy sweater and a hole in her torn skinny jeans. She was too busy avoiding me and the conversation.
My leather jacket was laid in the back seat of her car and I left it there.
Being home is nothing like I thought it would be. There’s a constant anxiousness that has me on edge. Even as I drove Kat’s car, taking her back here to the club, I struggled with reaching out to hold her hand.
There’s a part of me that’s dead and gone. And a part that’s mourning what used to be. More than anything I want it back, but as her pace slows with us nearing the club, I question what it used to be. What loyalty meant and whether or not it ever existed.
It hit hard when Kat asked if we were taking my bike.
The dreams of her on the back of my bike carried me through hell and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not for this.
None of this feels right. It’s not what I was told it was. It’s as if I’ve been living a lie. It’s eerie as I slip my fingers through her hand and walk through the same door that led to our end four years ago.
“Cillian?” My name on Kat’s lips holds fear, insecurity and the threat of her turning around and leaving me as I push open the door.
She pulls back, her boots stumbling in the gravel and her hand leaving mine.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” I say and the words leave me before I’m able to stop them. With my pulse pounding in my ears, I tell her with a gravelly tone, “You are mine.”