Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Dr. Horton,” Zack says, and my insides flip a bit when I turn back to look at the man. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says, and then Jack finally speaks.
“Daddy said you’re going to make me all better.” His voice comes out like a whisper, and I see what I already knew—he’s sick. The hat on his head is hiding the fact he doesn’t have hair, the brim pulled low showing that his eyebrows are not there either.
I inhale and put on the smile that I do for all my patients. “Let’s see what I can do.” But this time, I’m not sure that even I can help.
Chapter Two
Zack
“We have to put your seat belt on now. We are landing.” I lean over and buckle Jack’s seat belt. I smile down at my son, who looks around slowly and smiles, his eyes getting heavier and heavier.
It’s been one week since that fateful day I walked in on my wife in bed with another man. I look out the window as my mind goes back.
I drove around for fifty-five minutes. In that time, I called my coach, and he was shocked, to say the very least. He asked that I not make any rash decisions, and I had to say I hadn’t felt this good in a long time.
When I pulled up to my house with a minute to spare, I parked my car and walked in the front door. Her bag waited beside the door while she walked down the stairs. This time in jeans and a t-shirt. I watched her, looking at how different she was now from when we met in high school. The shy girl who used to blush when I spoke to her, who would hold my hand in secret, and then who slowly started coming to my games.
We fell in love with each other in high school, but she was so different back then. Simple, so fucking simple. She would love bowling on Friday nights or drinking beer under the stars. But now, now it’s like an alien has taken over her body, and I don’t even recognize the person she’s become.
Her hair now so bleached you can’t even see the brown she started with. Gone is the girl who would just be happy with pizza, and in its place is one who needs bigger and better.
If someone else has it, she wants it. She has had her whole body redone, and she almost looks like a Barbie doll now. I think the only things that are actually still hers are her eyes.
“I was just kissing him goodbye,” she says softly when she stops in front of me. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
I look at her as I take off my jacket. “Didn’t want me to find out what way exactly?”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” she says, and it almost looks like she is about to cry, but I guess she just had her Botox redone.
“Harder than what? Me walking in and seeing you in bed with one of my best friends?”
“We …” she says, “we didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I shake my head. “How long?” I ask her, and she just looks down at her hands. “You owe me at least the fucking truth after everything we’ve been through.”
“A year,” she whispers, “give or take.”
“So a couple of months after the doctors diagnosed our son with cancer, you left me and went to him.” I laugh at the irony—my life almost stopped that day when hers just started.
“It wasn’t like that.” She tries to say something else, and I just shake my head.
“I’m leaving,” I tell her. “I’ll be gone in a week. You can have the house, but I want Jack.” I don’t know why I thought she would try to fight me about Jack. I don’t know why I was hoping that maybe the old Chantal would be there, but she wasn’t.
“We should sell the house,” she says, and I just walk away. Climbing the stairs, I turn to go to my son’s room.
“Sir,” the flight attendant says to me, “we will be landing in five minutes.”
I nod at her and look around the private jet that the Stingers sent for me.
Doug, the owner of the Stingers, took only five minutes to accept my deal. It included a huge chunk of downgrading, but they are going back up next year after they lower their salary cap. I didn’t give a shit because New York was where I needed to be. I was also lucky when Doug offered me a brownstone that apparently was his daughter’s, for however long I needed it. She is married to the captain of the team, Matthew Grant.
When the wheels touch down, the plane bobs a bit, waking Jack. “Are we here?” he asks, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes.