Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
I try to focus, but with the quiet of the night, I can’t help but to think of Addison. She’s always comforted me in the darkness.
I finally had her. Really had her. I felt what I always knew there could be between us. And I let her get away. I lost her by confessing.
Maybe that’s why it hurts this fucking bad. She loved who I am, but hates what I’ve done. And there’s no way I can take it back.
She saw the truth of what I was, but I could have sworn she knew it all along.
Maybe I should have just hinted at it. And let her ask if she wanted to know more.
You can’t change the past. If anyone knows that fact all too well, it’s me.
Give her time. I close my eyes, remembering the advice I gave Tyler once. If only it was that easy.
The chill in the autumn air is just what I need as I steady my pace with my hands in my jacket pockets. The metal of the gun feels cold against my hand as I glance from house number to house number.
55 West Planes. In the mailbox.
That’s what Marcus said. Simple instructions. But an easy setup if he’s planning one.
They say he’s a man with no trace, no past, and nothing to use against him. A ghost. A man who doesn’t exist.
He knows everything and only tells you what he wants when he wants to deliver it. But he’s a safe in-between for people like us to use. Because if Marcus tells you something, it’s because he wants you to know it.
And that’s a good thing, unless he wants you dead.
I brush my hair back as I glance from right to left. There’s a group of guys on the steps of an old brick house across the street and on its mailbox is 147.
I cross the street after passing them, so I’m on the odd-numbered side. The block before this was numbered in the two hundreds. So one more block.
The adrenaline pumps in my blood and I finger the gun inside my jacket pocket.
I have to will away the thoughts of Addison, no matter how much they cling to me and plague me every waking second.
My father taught us all to pay attention. Distractions are what get you killed.
A huff of a laugh leaves me at the memory of his lesson.
I guess when you don’t care if you live or die, the severity of his words don’t send pricks down your skin like they did when you were a child.
Tyler wasn’t with me that day. I wonder if my father ever bothered to give Tyler that advice. Addison was as big of a distraction to him as she was to me.
With the tragic memories threatening to destroy me, I halt in my tracks, realizing I wasn’t even looking at the numbers.
And I happened to stop right at 55. The mailbox is only two steps away.
The cold metal door of the mailbox opens with a creak. The sound travels in the tense air and the inside appears dark and empty. I dare to reach inside and pull out only an unmarked envelope. Nothing else.
My forehead pinches as I consider it. It’s thin and looks as if it’s not even carrying anything. But it’s sealed and this is the right address.
All of this for one little envelope.
Slamming the door to the mailbox shut, I walk a few blocks, gripping the envelope in my hand and looking for a bus stop.
I text my brother even though I don’t want to. I don’t want him to know it’s done. That I have what he’s been waiting for. It’s just an envelope.
It’s marked as read almost immediately and he responds just as quickly.
Good. Come back home.
Staring at his text, that pit in my stomach grows. I’m frozen to the cement sidewalk, knowing I have to leave and hating that fact.
I know I need to move and not stay here, lingering when Marcus will be watching. But with the phone staring back at me with no new messages or missed calls, the compulsive habit of calling Addison takes over.
The phone rings and rings and goes to her voicemail.
I haven’t stopped trying and I don’t intend to.
I stayed as long as I could outside her door. I listened to her cry until she had nothing left. I don’t know if I should have tried to talk to her and made her aware that I was still there wanting to comfort her, or if it would have only made her angrier.
A heavy burden weighs on my chest as I slip the envelope into my jacket, careful to fold it down the center and keep moving in the night.
I have no choice but to take this back to Carter. There’s no way I can stay.