Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
The younger twins, River and Grant, were a ball of fun. They never took anything too seriously, other than making sure their haircuts were always fresh and neat. Women in town were in love with those two guys, but they didn’t seem too interested in the attention. River, I heard, just ended things with his girlfriend, and Grant… Well, he had a few situationships of his own.
Outside of the guys looking like Greek gods, they were some of the nicest individuals I’d ever crossed paths with—even Evan and his grumpiness. He wasn’t rude—just…reserved. I understood that. I liked to keep to myself and my family, too.
And if I didn’t have my own feelings toward Nathan, I would’ve thought he was one of the most charming people in the world, too, like his brothers. Maybe that was the issue, though. I knew Nathan on a personal level, which tainted my viewpoint of him.
I wished I could look at him the same way I viewed his brothers—as if he was simply a handsome, remarkable man who could make any person blush with a simple “hello.” I was almost certain half of Easton and Evan’s business at their butcher shop came from women coming in just to hear Easton compliment them on their looks.
The Pierce charm was a real infectious illness that a lot of people fell for. Luckily for me, I had my vaccine.
After I closed O’Reilly’s that night, I was left on high alert. The interactions with Nathan were more than I was ready to deal with, and I could not for the life of me understand why he got under my skin so much.
When I got home, I showered, washed my face, and climbed into my bed, where Wesley was already sleeping. As I lay down, he snuggled closer to me, wrapping his arms around me, as he did every night I crawled into bed with him.
He gently kissed my shoulder blade and whispered, “Good night.”
I didn’t fall asleep right away.
Instead, I lay in my fiancé's arms, thinking about another man.
6
AVERY
Get up, Avery.
Every now and then, I would wake up in bed and be unable to move.
I had never told anyone about the struggles of not being able to physically pull myself out of bed, but lately, it had been happening a lot more than I felt comfortable with. On those mornings, I felt breathless. It was as if the weight of the world sat heavily on my chest, and I couldn’t remove it, no matter how hard I tried.
That morning was one of those mornings.
Wesley had already left for his morning workout. He always woke before me, before the sun, too, and he’d be gone by the time my eyes opened.
I lay in bed as the weight of my own breath felt like a boulder on my chest. The sunlight crept through the curtains, a slimmer of light in the darkness of my room, mocking the darkness that currently clung to me like a second skin. I hated these moments. The moments when I slipped into a type of sadness I couldn’t make sense of.
I’m not depressed.
I’m not depressed.
I’m fine.
I’m fine.
Those words kept playing repeatedly through my mind. They were trying to push out the other thoughts that seemed to grow louder and louder with every passing second.
Stay down.
What’s the point of getting up?
I hated days like today. Days when the battle inside me raged fiercer than I’d had the strength to fight. Depression was an uninvited guest to my soul, and it had thrown a shroud over my will, leaving me paralyzed in the sanctuary of my bed.
The digital clock on my nightstand kept changing, a relentless reminder of the world moving forward without me. I wanted to get up and shake off the despondency sticking to me, but my body refused to obey my wants.
I was tired.
So desperately exhausted.
It was as if my limbs were tethered to the mattress, each attempt to move quashed by an invisible force.
“Get up, get up, get up, Avery,” I whispered to the hollowness, a feeble attempt to summon any shred of willpower. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears, as though it belonged to another person. I felt as if my own soul had abandoned my body, and I was left with nothing more than emptiness.
I had many reasons to be happy.
Sure, a few things had gone wrong lately, but there was more good than bad. I was getting married in three weeks. In three short weeks, I’d be saying “I do” to someone who loved me. Someone who chose me even though I never felt good enough.
I wasn’t good enough.
“No,” I murmured, knowing those thoughts were not my own. It was the depression seeping in, feeding me with its devilish lies—lies I was trying my hardest to fight.
As I lay there, my phone suddenly rang, breaking me out of the small trance I found myself in. Yara’s name flashed across the screen. I stared at it but didn’t answer.