Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
I wriggle out from underneath his grip and he turns over, burying his face in the pillow, his hands underneath it. Showing off his biceps, maybe?
I grin, study them a little—because why not, they’re quite beautiful—but he’s not awake. So he’s not showing off. He’s just tired, I think.
I use the bathroom and when I come out… there they are. My nine ghosts, all lined up against the bedroom window.
They do something unusual this time, though. They walk out. Single file. They just walk out of the room.
I don’t go back to bed. I couldn’t sleep now anyway. I just pull on a new pair of scraggly denim shorts. I want to go for a run, which is ironic. Until Eason showed up, I hadn’t thought about running in years. But I can’t run yet. My foot is still too sore for shoes. I can walk, though. It barely hurts at all now. The beach is calling me and the breaking dawn is the only reason it’s so quiet. I like walking the beach when it’s nearly empty like this.
My ghosts are waiting for me in front of the door. Dead eyes all around. I slip past them, out the door, barefoot, and go down the steps to the ground level. They follow me, but whatever. I just ignore them. I refuse to let them control my emotions.
The doorman sitting behind the small desk smiles at me. “Good morning, Mrs. Malone.”
I don’t correct him, but I do smile. “Good morning. I’m just going for a walk.”
He smiles back at me, then looks down at his computer screens.
I slip out the side entrance to Eason’s building and take a direct path that leads right to the sand. I always thought my condo was really close to the beach. Just eight blocks away. But this is on the beach.
Steps away.
And that’s something else entirely. Something you get used to quickly, I imagine. Like the money.
I don’t need money. I have enough. But Eason’s money is also something else entirely. I don’t spend much because I don’t really dream big, other than my escape from Maart—because that’s what it really was. It wasn’t me trying to start a new life, it was me running away—but other than that, I haven’t done anything daring since I left the fights behind seven years ago.
There were no big plans or fancy desires, even though I have the money now to have both of those things. I haven’t allowed myself the option of fully creating a new life. I’ve just been stuck in the wake of the old one. Waiting for it to catch up with me.
And that’s gonna happen today.
Maart is coming today.
Everything is going to change. Not because of Maart, but because Eason and I are partners now. We can make plans together. We can go places, and use that money we have, and we wouldn’t have to do those things alone.
When my feet touch the sand, I’m picturing day trips on the boat.
When my feet touch the surf, I’m picturing trips to other places. What’s close? The Bahamas? Mexico? Maybe even all the way down the coast to Rio? We could stop at the Rock. Spend a night there. Play table games and read books.
Wouldn’t that be something?
I could show Eason where I grew up. We could even, if we wanted to, go look at the camp on the coast. I could show him my hut. And all the little secret places in the jungle where I would steal away when I had a chance. Where I used to sit on a fallen palm-tree trunk, lying back, eyes closed, dappled sunlight coming through the canopy above, making everything yellow as I listened to the birds, and the monkeys, and the insects, and pictured a life of winning.
And look—it happened.
I won.
It’s nothing like how I pictured it, and it’s taken me all these seven years between that day and this one to even come close to understanding things, but it’s still winning.
I stop on the wet sand and look out at the ocean. It’s another calm day and everything in front of me looks like glass. There is an overpowering urge inside me to walk into the water. So I do. I walk right out into the waves, just like I did that night I learned that Maart was looking for me.
Only this time, when I tip onto my back, let out a breath, and look up at the sky, it’s not dark. It’s light and getting lighter. And not only that, I’m not crying, I’m smiling.
I’m thinking… It’s over.
Everything that came before this day is over.
And everything that comes after is new.
I float like that for a little while, letting the sea wash the past away.
When I sit up again, I’ve drifted south, the sun is bright and hot, and there are a lot more people on the beach. Even my nine ghosts.