Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I basically run for the bus, across the open-plan grounds and past the well-maintained gardens. The autumn air tickles me coolly as I pick up my pace, just about making it to the stop in time.
Once I’m sitting at a window seat, munching on a store-brand snack bar, I look at the list again.
There are math teachers, English as a foreign language, tutors who specialize in helping students overcome their anxiety, budgeting experts, a whole list. Unfortunately, I haven’t got time to take advantage of all that’s offered, but I do need to focus on the math one.
I’ve never been great at it.
You’ve never been great at anything….
That’s Jess’ voice again. It’s funny – and by funny, I mean hellish – how it still pops up, even two years after it all happened.
I’m twenty. I should be healed.
But would I say something like that to one of my clients when I’m a counselor? Would I tell them they should be healed just because time has passed?
Still, it’s difficult to force self-defeating thoughts from my mind.
Mary wants us all to have competent math skills, since there’s a module in our course dedicated to helping people handle their money. I’ve been relying on Hudson for too long, but it’s not like I haven’t been doing my fair share.
I’ll do better, focus harder, make it happen so I’m fully equipped when I go out into the world.
I look out the window as we round the corner from college. Second Chance is situated on the outskirts near the docks, giving the air a fresh, biting feeling, seemingly designed to wake students up and get them ready for class.
The downside is that it means it takes me an hour to get back into the city for my shift at the restaurant. Sleep tries to tug at me, but I fight it, remembering a couple of days ago when I almost missed my stop.
When we stop at a red light, a man walks across the street…and my heart starts thumping, sweat pricking me, and my mind is going to silly places.
He’s tall, wide, and muscular. His hair is silver and drenched in experience, in power somehow…his whole body is.
It’s like every inch of him is roaring, You can’t touch me, so don’t even try. And yet he does it without seeming arrogant.
He walks calmly, but confidently, his muscular shoulders pulled back. His hands hang at his sides as though ready to spring into use.
I find myself imagining tracing his strong jawline or running my hands down his back to feel the bulging muscles there. A fantasy of falling into his thick arms and closing my eyes as he holds me protectively…it strikes me, almost seeming real.
Maybe he feels me watching him because he turns.
Instinct makes me snap my gaze forward.
My skin tingles as though I can feel him staring at me, but I’ve got no way of knowing without looking to check.
I squeeze my hands together, conscious of how sticky my body suddenly feels. It’s like I’ve already done a few hours of my shift at the restaurant.
The bus pulls away, leaving me to wonder who that man was…
Or why he’s making my thoughts so wild, sprinting here and there, screaming that I should make the driver stop the bus and run out. I should go after him, jump at him, knowing he’ll catch me.
This stranger. Whoever he is.
I shake my head, trying to push all these notions away.
My hands alone are one reason the mature, handsome man would never want me. Some of the skin is cracked from all the dishwashing. No fancy manicures to distract from it.
Suddenly – insanely – I feel like I might cry.
You’ve got the hands of a pig. Everyone knows it.
I know all about the white bear phenomenon. Tell a person not to think of a white bear, and suddenly all they can think of is a white bear. It’s purposefully trying not to think of something which causes it to return again and again.
I know that, and yet it’s so difficult not to yell in my mind.
Let me stop thinking about Jess. The way she made me feel, the sick things she said, did, they’re not me.
They don’t have to define me. They don’t have to twist my self-image.
For the rest of the bus ride, I try not to think of the stranger, a man I’ve seen once and will never see again. But his image is tattooed into my mind.
It was his calm, most of all, as though his size and his physical strength are only byproducts of his mental toughness.
I almost laugh at myself.
I saw him for maybe ten seconds if that. And suddenly, I want to make all these assumptions?
But as the bus brings me closer to the restaurant, I return to the fantasy.
I imagine walking down the street, calling his name – whatever it is – and seeing him turn. His serious features will shape into a smile, just for me, a glimpse of brightness he doesn’t offer the rest of the world.