Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157175 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157175 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
It’s Dad’s birthday. And he’s real grumpy about it!
I swallow as I pull Ava closer to my chest and move to the couch, sitting and arranging her with ease on my lap. I quickly check her head, making sure she’s not upset her wound, as she curls up so small, huddled and sobbing into me. I say nothing and just hold her for the next hour while she cries her heart out, curses out loud, shouts and screams, and sobs some more. My eyes are stinging from the silent tears I allow to escape while her head is buried in my chest, her fingers clawing at my T-shirt to hold on to me, like she’s afraid I’ll leave her alone in her darkness. Never. We’re in this together. All the way to the end. I can’t see any light at the end of this torturous tunnel, but I pray it’s there somewhere.
Eventually, her sobbing subsides, though I don’t push her to leave her hiding place, waiting patiently for her to brave facing the stranger who’s holding her. ‘Zero, baby,’ Ava murmurs into my chest on a sniffle. I stiffen. ‘Why do I keep hearing those words?’
I push her away from my chest to find her eyes. They’re red and swollen. ‘It’s one of our games,’ I explain, and she frowns, encouraging me to go on. ‘I start at three, and when I get to zero—’
‘What?’
I shrug, pushing on. ‘Sometimes I tickle the shit out of you, sometimes I kiss the living daylights out of you, and sometimes I put you in bed.’ That’s about as delicate as I could be in explaining the countdown. ‘Ava, baby, it’s just another part of our wonderful.’
She smiles, just a little. But it’s still a smile. ‘Ava, baby,’ she whispers, settling back into my chest, turning her face outward so her cheek is flat on my pec, her eyes staring across the room to the wall. ‘Whenever you say that, it sounds perfectly right. Whenever you hold me, it feels perfectly right. Whenever I look at you, I know you are mine. When I look at the kids, I don’t recognise them, but something tells me to protect them. It all feels incredibly right.’
‘Because it is right,’ I reply, so relieved to hear that. It’s a flash of the light in this darkness I’m searching for. ‘Everything about us is right.’
‘So why can’t I remember?’ Her voice cracks again, and not for the first time, I try to imagine her bleakness. Try to imagine what it must be like to feel so misplaced. I’m not sure it’s fair to compare her struggle to mine. ‘You must be so frustrated, too,’ she sobs. ‘How long will it be until you give up on me?’
Give up? Jesus, she really doesn’t know me any more at all. Ignoring the pain in my heart is hard. Hearing her doubt my determination is a killer.
‘You will remember,’ I vow. ‘You and I are a formidable force, Ava. Nothing has defeated us in the past, and I’m not about to let it now.’
I take her wedding ring and bring it to my lips, kissing it gently, and she looks up at me with so much need in her eyes. It’s need of another kind. Not a sexual need, but a need for me. Just me. To help her, to support her, to love her. To remind her. ‘I once told you that I wanted to look after you for ever.’ I hold her eyes, never wavering. ‘I meant it, baby. For ever isn’t over yet. Never will be, not for us. I love you. You are the best part of me, Ava. The greatest part. That can’t be forgotten.’
She blinks a few times, maybe a little taken aback. That hurts, too, because any other time I’ve told her how much I love her, she’s just smiled and kissed me. ‘We must love each other an awful lot.’
‘It’s pure bliss, baby,’ I begin quietly. ‘Total gratification.’ I lower my lips cautiously and peck her wet cheek lightly. ‘Absolute, complete, earth-shifting—’
‘Universe-shaking love.’ She barely breathes those final words, but I hear them like they’re being delivered through a megawatt speaker held at my ear.
‘Yeah,’ I confirm, cool on the outside, but on the inside I’m constantly being carved up by the fact that she’s saying things and she doesn’t know why she’s saying them. ‘I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you, do you hear me?’
She nods through more tears and crawls in closer to me, except this time her face goes into my neck and she breathes me in, her lips resting just perfectly on my skin as her hands slip under my T-shirt and feel me. ‘You always smell so good. Are you going to tell me how old you are now?’