Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“I don’t want anything.”
“Then go and leave me the fuck alone.”
He steps closer. “Don’t tell me what to fucking do.”
Rolling my eyes, I step around him but then stop. My heart is hammering as I remember what I felt in the depth of that water.
“What now?” He’s referring to the fact I’ve stopped.
“I don’t want to go home.” I’m not kidding either. I really don’t want to go home. I can’t go back to that prison, that hell.
“Ever? Is it really that bad?”
I hug myself and wet my lips. I’m so thirsty. “Do you have Poppy’s number?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” I stare at the spaces between the houses, considering sleeping in somebody’s shed. That’s how much I don’t want to go home. “Can I stay at yours?” I loathe to ask but I don’t have any other choice. “And then tomorrow I’ll go to my mom’s. She has a place in San Antonio. It’s like three hours away but there are buses…”
“Shit. You’re serious,” he mumbles.
Nodding, I look deep into his eyes. “It’s all I’ll ever ask you for. I need to get away. I’m going to die if I stay here.” I look back the way I came and consider returning.
“Fine. You can stay with me.” He grins after a moment, back to his usual arrogant self. “But you’ve gotta show me your panties.”
I laugh, looking at the ground as I try to hide it from him.
26 years old
“As I live and breathe,” a familiar, raspy voice calls. I heard him coming because he came on his bike and I can’t bring myself to feel bitter about it. “Imogen Hardy.”
“Mr. Jessop.”
He grins at me, that familiar smile that is so much like his son’s.
“Mr. Jessop?” he questions, pretending to be offended. “When did we get all formal, kid?”
I stifle a groan when his wife, Kane’s stepmom pulls up behind him on her dark pink bike with matching helmet and leathers. She’s still as outlandish as I remember.
“I told you to wait for me!” she snaps with a thick accent.
“My bad, doll.”
She strolls right past him and comes at me with her arms outstretched. “As I live and breathe. I heard you were in town.”
“I see your accent hasn’t reduced none,” I comment, returning her hug and mimicking her accent.
“Don’t you start now,” she playfully admonishes and holds me at arm’s length. “My oh my, aren’t you just a beauty.”
“I could say the same about you.”
We share a smile and I hug her again. “It’s so good to see you guys.”
“You say that like we’re the ones who ran away.”
I wince. “It wasn’t personal.”
“We know. But it was somethin’.” She moves to West, her husband aka Kane’s father and looks between us both. “I bet you’re wonderin’ why we’re here?”
“You’d bet right, not that you’re unwelcome.”
West steps forward and hands me a small envelope.
“What’s this?”
He shrugs. “It’s a letter from your mee-maw.”
I bristle, ready to tear it in two but he grips my hand that holds the flimsy paper.
“She said you’d likely never come home, but you might come to Kane. Kane wanted nothin’ to do with her, so I said out of respect as her dyin’ wish, I’d deliver it to you.”
I look at the paper burning fiery pain through my skin. “What’s in it?”
“I don’t know, she said it was real important and to open it when you’re ready.”
My chin trembles as I consider crying over the old hag one more time. “I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with her.”
“What did she do to you?” Felicia tightens her dark blonde ponytail, eyes awash with concern. “I mean… other than what we already know.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I reply on a whisper. “She’s dead. Where she belongs. I hope if hell exists, that’s where she ends up.”
15 years old
“Well you can’t stay on the couch, my dad will find you and call your mee-maw and then there will be no runnin’ away,” Kane hisses at me, arguing his very valid point. “He don’t bother me in here.” He peels off his damp T-shirt and drops it into a hamper by the door.
“Fine, but you’re staying on the floor.”
His brow jumps. “Like hell I am.”
“Shh,” I hiss, placing my fingers over his lips.
He bites the tip of the middle one until I pull away. As I’m shaking it to relieve the pain he chuckles and pushes down his jeans. He has mud and grass stuck to his legs from the lake and when I inspect myself, so do I. We’re both filthy.
“Will I be able to shower?” I ask even more quietly.
Nodding, he moves to his closet and grabs a large gray towel, then he moves to his drawers and pulls out a T-shirt before slinging it over the top of the towel and holding them out to me.
“You’re so neat and tidy,” I comment.