Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I look at her through the water in my own eyes, faltering. Leave her?
“Just like your mother left you,” she says.
Excuse me? If she thinks she knows shit about my mother…
But she just shakes her head. “Trysta, right? Trysta Jaeger and her six kids that she left when she hung herself in her fucking bathroom.”
I exhale hard, grinding my teeth together. I am nothing like my mother. I’m not abandoning Clay. I’ll fucking run from her.
She backs away, tossing the marker onto the table and grabs her bag, T-shirt, and phone. “Tell Lavinia I’ll be in to pick up the dress on Tuesday.”
And she spins around, heads offstage, and disappears.
I wait until I hear the heavy back door slam shut, and then I let out a breath.
A couple of tears spill to the floor as I glance down at my body. But immediately look away before I can take in everything she did to me.
I pick up the sweats and pull them on as quickly as I can, followed by the T-shirt. I look around, finding my shoes, but…
I don’t see my underwear.
Where the hell are my underwear?
I swing around left and again right, lifting up my wet clothes, but I don’t see them anywhere.
My shoulders slump. She took them. What is she going to do with them?
Goddammit. I wipe my tears before any more can fall, take my stuff, and leave the theater, shoes in hand.
It’s still raining outside, but I don’t run to my car. My energy is gone. I walk.
She knows where to hit, doesn’t she? She could do or say anything. She could have my brothers arrested with the slightest accusation.
She could have Martelle fired.
She could probably get Dartmouth to rescind my acceptance letter if she knew about it. All it would take is putting me in the path of scandal or arrest, and Dartmouth would wash their hands of me.
She didn’t go for those kills, though. Putting herself in my house, at my table, in one of my brothers’ beds… Home wouldn’t even be safe for me anymore.
I drive through town, speeding because I’m anxious, but I don’t want to go home.
Looking over, I see the dress shop ahead, the Closed sign hanging on the door. Without thinking, I swing right and pull into a parking space.
Leaving my shoes in the car, I grab my keys out of my backpack on the passenger seat and climb out of the car. I run to the shop, unlocking the door and diving inside.
Miss Lavinia must’ve decided to stay closed today with the weather, but I know she has calls forwarded in case someone has an emergency.
I twist the lock again, leaving the lights off as I trail to the workroom.
She offered to take me on as an apprentice last year, maybe run the shop together someday. While I guess I’m good at sewing, and I kind of enjoy designing, I only learned it as part of being as useful as I can be at the theater. It’s not what I want to do forever.
I’m thankful for this job, though. At least it’s not a drive-thru.
I step inside the large room, keeping the lights off, but light streams through the windows, rain pummeling the panes. There’s a couch I want to crash on below the bulletin boards on the left wall, but I spot a dress laying on the table, pins stuck in the hem. Clay had wanted the length shortened.
Walking over, I pick up the dress, looking down at the Collins’ heirloom that I knew Clay’s grandmother and mother had both worn. I’d seen the pictures.
Once in a while, after Lavinia is gone for the night, I try on some of the dresses I’ve altered. Sometimes I wonder if I’d have turned out more girly, if my mother had stuck around. By the time makeup and clothes started to interest me, she was gone and we were even poorer than when my parents were alive. A lot of what I owned before I could start making my own money was whatever no longer fit Trace.
I fist the neckline in both hands, bringing it to my nose and smell the fabric.
Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to be up on that riser as just a girl, excited for something special to happen to me, with my mom arguing with me about what to do with my hair.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to not be me. To live a life where every single step didn’t have to be so hard.
I tighten my fists around the dress, breathing hard and shallow as my gaze grows hotter on the fabric. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be Clay.
And before I can stop myself, I stretch my arms wide, hard and fast, the ancient silk screaming as it tears in two.