Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
There is so much wrong with me, so much that is broken. The first thing on my list was guilt. I felt guilty, and to be honest, I’m not sure if I felt guilty for doing it or for getting caught doing it. I harp on the list, going over and over it for hours. So long that when I look up, it’s dark out.
I pick up the phone and call Jeffrey, who answers on the third ring. “Hello,” he says, and I can hear him chewing.
“Hey, it’s me. Are you busy?” I ask, knowing he is probably eating with his family.
“Not that much. What’s up?” he asks, and I hear the chair in the background scrape against the floor.
“I’m done with step four,” I tell him. “I mean, I wrote my list.”
“How was it?” he asks me.
“Painful,” I tell him the truth quietly. “I kept playing over the past four years, and I was a horrible person.”
“You probably were.” He doesn’t sugarcoat anything. “The good news is that you can see it now,” he says quietly. “Admitting to ourselves that we aren’t perfect is a hard thing.”
“I swear there is nothing good on this list,” I tell him. “I look at it, and I cringe at what that person was, what I was.”
“The big question is who are you going to tell?” he asks me. “Who are you going to choose who will listen to the inventory of yourself?”
“I don’t know,” I lie because I know who I want to share this list with. I also know who I can’t share this list with, and it’s the same person. Zoe.
“Sure, you do,” he says. “I remember when I did mine. I sat down, and the whole time I was writing, I knew who I wanted to share it with. I knew exactly who I was writing it for.”
“You’re better than me then,” I tell him and change the subject. “I’m having a dinner at my house on November first.”
“Really?” He knows I’m changing the subject, but he doesn’t call me out on it. “Good. Count us in for two.”
“Bringing the missus finally?” I joke with him. “Perfect.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “For listening and always being there.”
“It’s my job,” he says. “And I like you,” he says with a laugh and disconnects. I toss my phone back on the table and get up to go to the fridge. I pop the pizza in the oven and go take a shower.
It feels like I’m washing my sins away, washing the bad away, except the need to just go into a daze is strong. To not accept it, I never thought letting go of the drug would be this hard mentally for me. I expected to have a couple of days with tremors. I wasn’t expecting the soul searching I would have to do in order to beat it away.
I stand at the stove and eat my pizza and then collapse onto the bed. I don’t know what to expect, but it’s not to sleep a whole blissful six hours. Six. I have to wonder if it’s because I finally let go of the awful person I was before. To write down all your wrongs and purge it from your soul. And for the next two weeks, it’s the same thing. I sleep just under six hours each night, and I’m finally back on the ice right before the “monster bash.”
I slip into my costume and then grab the accessories, shaking my head the whole way down to the car as I make my way over to the arena where everyone is meeting. From what I heard in the past two weeks, it’s going to be a party extravaganza. Oliver’s exact words.
I get out of the car and head to the dressing room, stopping at Oliver, who is just wearing a suit, a short white wig, and a mustache. “Why aren’t you dressed up?” I ask him.
He looks down at his costume. “I am.” He smiles and puts on dark sunglasses. “I’m Stan Lee.”
“Oh, dear God.” I shake my head and then look past him at the guys who have arrived. Max leads the way in ripped jeans with his whole body painted green. I look at Matthew, who is dressed as Spider-Man, and I laugh.
“What are you supposed to be?” Matthew asks me, and I hold up my shield with the American colors and the star in the middle.
“I’m Captain America,” I tell them, looking down at the costume that cost me way more than I wanted to spend.
“But you’re Russian,” Evan says, and I look at him dressed as Batman.
“I’m American.” I shake my head, and we walk into the dressing room and it looks like a comic con.
“Okay, people,” Oliver says. “We are opening the doors and letting the fans in,” he says, and I look at Evan.