Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“I…” she trailed off. “Is that what you want?”
I could see the moment she decided to give in. The moment that she knew that I wanted this for her, even if she hadn’t wanted it enough for herself.
“Do you really want to go to school?” she asked, sounding tired.
“I need to find something to do with my life,” I said. “I can’t just be a deckhand, or a fish cleaner, forever.”
She looked at her fingernails. She was a nail-biter, I could tell that she wanted to bring that left pointer finger to her mouth and nibble away.
God, I loved her. I loved every single thing there was about her.
“You promise you’ll be here when I get back? What if I move on?” she challenged.
Just the thought of her moving on? God, that felt like an ice pick straight to the heart.
“Then, we’ll find our way back to each other if it’s meant to be,” I said.
God, it was hard saying those words.
But I really needed her to follow her dreams. She wouldn’t do that if she stayed with me.
That made me feel like such an ass, watching her deflate at my words. But I’d do just about anything to see her become the one thing that she’d always wanted to be.
Just yesterday, I’d watched her speak so animatedly about her hopes and dreams, her wants and desires, that I knew this was the step that I needed to take.
That didn’t make that step any easier for me to process, however.
It made me feel like utter shit.
“You promise?” she said. “You’ll be here?”
“If at age thirty, we’re both not married, then we’ll get married. No matter what’s happened since we parted, I’d be proud to call you mine,” I said.
• • •
“I hated you for letting me go,” she whispered. “I felt like you ripped my heart out and stomped on it. It took me years to get over you.”
Get over you.
Was she over me?
Because I’d been married, had a kid, spent years in prison, and yet every single fucking night, I thought about nothing but her.
She started reeling again, her eyes leaving mine, and I knew that was the end of the conversation.
For now, anyway.
I’d make sure that it wasn’t the last, however.
Because, as of last week, we were now both in our thirties and unmarried.
If she thought I was going to forget that fact, she was delusional.
CHAPTER 7
My ex was like, “I know a spot,” and took me to the lowest point in my life.
-Morrigan’s secret thoughts
MORRIGAN
I’d been hurt before, of course.
I mean, when you had disabilities like mine, you ended up on the floor a lot.
In fact, I’d had so many concussions, it’d been discussed that maybe I should possibly start wearing a helmet.
Which was laughable, because there was no way in hell I’d ever willingly walk around with one of those in my everyday life.
However, it was at that moment in time that I was thinking that concussions, and being strangled, were two very different things.
Why, you ask, was I being strangled?
I didn’t have any earthly idea.
What I did know was that I’d walked into a situation that I couldn’t get myself out of.
All I’d been doing was intending to go to the grocery store. However, when I’d gotten halfway there, like the idiot I was, I’d left my getting gas until the last second, and I was desperately in need of some.
Since there were only two gas stations in Accident, I’d had zero choice but to go to the closest one, seeing as the other was notorious for allowing water to get into their gas, and blaming everyone and anything but themselves and their lack of due diligence.
And seeing as I liked my car, and couldn’t really afford a new motor for it at the moment, I chose to go to the one that was on the seedier side of town that was closest to the interstate’s path. Which also meant more people that weren’t part of our community.
Like today.
When I’d arrived at the gas station, the overhead light had been flickering.
Like every single woman in this day and age, I actually contemplated getting out of my car or not. I mean, I could probably make it to the grocery store and to work—my stupid milk supplier was seriously getting on my nerves—but I definitely couldn’t get from work to the gas station.
Not without doing the walk of shame with a gas can, of which I was about ninety-four percent certain I wouldn’t be able to do without overexerting myself.
That was my first mistake.
Getting out at the gas station without ample lighting.
My second was the shady-looking guy smoking the cigarette filling up his motorcycle.
I clocked him the moment that I pulled into the station. He was casually holding one hand to the gas pump that was dumping gas into the top tank of his motorcycle. Meanwhile, his other hand was holding a cigarette to his lips.