Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Unknown: Last night was everything.
I look down at the phone and then up again and see that she has disappeared around the block. Right then, another text comes in.
Unknown: Sorry wrong number.
“Fuck,” I say under my breath, but before I can do anything about it, I hear Dylan yelling my name. I put the phone in my pocket and walk around to the driver’s side and get to the rink in time to change and get on the ice.
The morning flies by with the classes on the ice. Dylan just keeps getting better and better. If he had the height, he could smash even the kids three years older than him.
At lunchtime, I walk outside and call her cell phone by accident, and I get the same generic message about the caller not being available. So I call her work number, and she answers right away.
“St. Vincent, Caroline speaking,” she says, and I smile.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say. “Justin.”
It’s almost like I can see the way she changes. Her voice is curt. “Hi. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, and then I sit in the same spot I did yesterday when I called her. “I was just calling to see how your first day was going.”
“Good,” she says, answering with one word.
“It was a wrong number,” I say, and she doesn’t say anything else. “This morning, the text I got. It was a wrong number.”
“Justin, there is no need to explain anything to me.” Her voice is flat. “You’re free to do what you want with who you want.”
“Caroline,” I say her name, and I really don’t want to have this conversation on the phone.
“I really have to go,” she says, and just like that, she hangs up, leaving me stuck looking down at the phone.
This woman is going to push me to be like Matthew, I think. Suddenly, everything that he’s ever done makes so much sense.
Chapter Fourteen
Caroline
He isn’t yours, I tell myself the whole way to work. He isn’t yours, and you aren’t his. This is what you want for him. But the whole time, all I see are the words in my head.
Last night was everything.
No wonder he looked so tired this morning. He probably spent the whole night with someone. I force my mind to shut off when Father Rolly explains my duties. Luckily for me, Murielle left everything in order, so just picking up where she left off is a breeze.
By the time noon rolls around, I’m sitting at the desk with nothing else to do. Father Rolly went out to make a house call and will be back, so I turn the computer on and search for the pawn shops in the area.
I call ten of the ones that I know Andrew has been to, but none of them have anything like what I’m describing. I hang up the phone, and it rings right away, and when I answer it, I’m smiling until I hear his voice.
I want to be mad that he was with someone, but I can’t be. I give him one-word answers, and he knows within two minutes into the conversation—hell, within one minute into the conversation—that I’m not myself.
“It was a wrong number,” he says, and the pen in my hand that I was tapping on the notepad stops. “This morning, the text I got. It was a wrong number.”
“Justin, there is no need to explain anything to me.” I pretend that I’m fine, and that everything is fine. “You’re free to do what you want with who you want.” I close my eyes, trying not to picture him with someone else.
“Caroline,” he says, and my heart pulls to him. To tell him that I was jealous and angry. That I don’t know what is going on, but I want to tell him everything, except I don’t.
“I really have to go.” I put the phone down and take a deep inhale and exhale.
“We are sometimes our own worst enemies.” I look up at the woman who runs the Narcotics Anonymous meeting. “Sorry for eavesdropping. I’m Cheryl,” she says. Her brown eyes look almost black, and her curly long brown hair is everywhere. “You must be Caroline. Father Rolly was telling me all about you last night.” Her smile fills her face, and I watch as she sits down in the same chair I sat in just yesterday.
“I thought you were only coming in at one?” I ask. She smiles and crosses her leg, and I have to say she looks so graceful.
“I got finished early and figured I would come around and introduce myself.” She puts her hands in her lap. “I should have thought this through and got coffee.”
I laugh now. “No need.” I put my pen down. “What you said before …?”
“About us being our worst enemies?” she says, and I nod. “It’s things that we do when we’ve been around addicts.”