Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
I’ll never forget the look of disappointment on his face when I showed up a few hours ago with a duffle bag. It’s like even he lost hope in me making it right with Kat.
It’s crushing to leave her. But it’s different this time. I get exactly why she needs space. This is why I never told her. She needed something to hold on to, though, she needed a solid reason to be pissed at me, so we could get through it and move on.
Still, I didn’t expect it to go down like it did. I’m worthless and it’s never been more apparent to me that my life is meaningless without Kat in it.
I swallow thickly as I lean back on the bed and fall against the pillow. I’ve never felt so alone. I wish I could take it all back.
My eyes close as I feel my heart slow and my blood turn cold. Being here like this makes me remember one of the last conversations I had with my mother.
She’d seen me with Kat while we were out one night. Just a coincidence, but she acted like it was more than it was.
Kat was a fling and a good time. She was someone I wanted more and more of and I made damn sure to monopolize her time until I had my fill, but of course that time would never come. I just didn’t know it back then or I liked to pretend I didn’t anyway.
“She seems sweet,” my mother told me when I came home for Sunday dinner. Looking back at that night now, I realize how much slower she was to set the table. How everything was a little off, but to me, Sunday dinner was just an obligation I had to my mother before I would be leaving to go out and have a good time.
“You didn’t really talk to her,” I said and laughed at my mom, shaking my head and taking a drink from whatever was in my cup. I leaned back and looked at my father, waiting for him to agree with me. When he didn’t, I added, “Plus she’s the only girl you’ve seen me with.”
“That’s true,” Ma replied and shrugged. “I like the way you two look together,” she stated matter-of-factly and then looked me in the eyes as she smiled. “Is it too much to ask that you pretend to value your mother’s opinion?”
I let out a small laugh and shook my head. “I’m glad you approve,” I told her. More just to make her happy than anything else, but it only opened the door for Ma to invite her over for the next family dinner. I had already started coming up with reasons to end it that night.
It was too much. I was young and in my prime and working a job that would keep my appetite well-fed.
I was ready to end it too the next night; it was too serious, too soon. But her smile and the way she laughed at me when I pulled up wearing an old rugby shirt caught me off guard in a way I found completely endearing. She thought it was the oddest thing and I’ll never forget the way her soft voice hummed with laughter and it carried into the night. Who was I to take that away? I knew she’d end it with me anyway. I didn’t know it would be after marriage and six years later.
If I could go back to that night, I would change it all and I’d make sure I told Ma she was right.
“I’m heading to bed.” My father’s voice catches me by surprise and my body jolts from the memory. I pretend to rub the sleep from my burning eyes and clear my throat to tell my father good night. It’s tight with emotion and it takes me a second to sit up in bed.
“You look like hell,” Pops says.
Nodding in agreement, I take a moment to set my feet on the floor. My head is still hung low and my shoulders are sagging as I rest my elbows on my knees.
“How did you keep Ma out of it? All the stupid shit you did?” I ask him. I know he led a wild life. He’s got the stories and the scars to prove it. I came by my lifestyle honestly.
I lift my head and look him in the eyes, forcing a small smile to my face. “I need to know what to do. I need advice.”
“You can’t. It’s gotta stop.” He shrugs his shoulders, the faint light from the hallway casting a long shadow of him into the room, ending at my feet. “That’s the advice I can give you. Don’t keep a thing from her. You should already know that.”
I swallow, or try to, as a ball of spikes grows in my throat. “What if you can’t stop? What if I can’t quit this job and this life?” The image of Tony dead on the floor remains firm in my sight. Even as I blink it away and look up at my father, I can still see him. Dead from an overdose and staring back at me with glassy, lifeless eyes as if it was my fault.