Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“I’d argue,” she says, accepting the whiskey, “but I never allow myself to be numb like I was a bit ago, and as it turns out, I’d like to feel that again.” She sips, testing it, and then downs it before handing me back the glass. “Thank you. That was smooth and, I suspect, quite expensive.”
“You’re worth it, and I vote we sit here and down the entire bottle.” I move to the cushion beside her and refill the glass, down the contents, and refill it again, offering it to Faith. “I know you didn’t kill her.”
She studies me a moment, takes the glass, downs the whiskey, and sets the glass on the table. “Do you? Because I don’t. I think that’s why your reaction got to me so much.”
“I told you—”
“It’s okay,” she says, grabbing my leg. “In fact, I should apologize, because when you walked into the house, I realized something. I set you up. Not on purpose. But come on, Nick. I dropped the ‘I killed her’ bomb.”
I’m stunned that she’s self-analytical enough to come to the same conclusion I did, and in the same timeline I did. “Why, Faith?”
“Some part of me feels so much guilt that I wanted you to come at me. I wanted you to punish me.” She gives an uncomfortable laugh. “I think I’m pretty fucked up and you should run, Nick.” She tries to pull her hand from my leg.
I cover it with mine, holding it in place. “I’m not going anywhere, Faith, and I’m not letting you, either. Not without a fight. One hell of a fight. And as for being fucked up. We’re all fucked up. Anyone who claims they aren’t is lying.”
“You don’t seem fucked up at all. You’re successful. You know yourself. You seem to know me.”
“I do know you, but obviously you don’t quite know me, yet, and I need to fix that. Starting with your current misconception of me. Of course I’m fucked up. My mother left my father for slutting around and then died and left me with that man. I blame her. I blame him. I blame me. I fear the fuck out of being just like that man.”
“You aren’t.”
“I am, Faith. I’m calculated. I’m cold with everyone but you, and yet I say that after the way I just treated you. I’m a bastard made by a bastard, and he was a damn good attorney. I drive myself to be better than he was. And I am.”
“Your version of being a bastard is a man who demanded to know everything from me. Not a man who assumed he did. Once I came to the realization that I’d pushed your buttons, I realized that, too, even if you did not.”
“I pushed you.”
“I pushed you, too. And for the record, it’s pretty impressive that your version of ‘fucked up’ is to be amazing at your job.”
“I’ve seen your art, Faith. Your version of fucked up makes you amazing at your job, too, and obviously, from your recent success, I’m not the only one who shares that opinion. But there’s a difference between the two of us. I know I’m amazing at my job. You don’t.”
“I’m working on that,” she says. “You’ve helped. Last night helped. But right now, in this moment, I’m consumed by the same demon I’ve been consumed by since my mother died. I go back and forth between anger and gut-wrenching guilt. But never grief, and that starts the guilt all over again.”
I hand her another glass of whiskey.
“I shouldn’t drink this,” she says.
“Why not? Are you driving?”
“Right,” she says. “Why? I’ll just go slower.”
“And as for your current demon,” I say when she sips from the glass, “I predict that once we get the chaos your mother created under control, you’ll find the grief. Or not. Maybe you’ll find out things about her that make that grief impossible.”
“Is that what happened with your father?”
“Yes,” I say. “It is, but I feel like I should remind you of what I just said. I came to terms with what I felt for my father many years before he died. And he wasn’t in my life; therefore, there wasn’t anything to change those terms.”
“And you really feel no grief?”
“I really feel no grief,” I say without hesitation. “But you asked me if I feel alone now.”
“You said that you don’t.”
“And I don’t,” I confirm, and when I would offer nothing more to anyone else, I do with Faith. “But, on some level, I have moments when I’m aware that I have no blood ties left in this world, and that stirs an empty sensation inside me. Maybe that is feeling alone. I just don’t name it that.”
“You have no family at all?”
“My mother’s family has been gone for many years. My uncle on my father’s side died a few years back, but I hadn’t seen the man in a decade and, as far as I know, neither had my father.”