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)
“Anyway, I just wanted to apologize since it may be a little weird. But you asked for this,” he adds, lightening his tone and trying to be playful.
My heart thuds and feels like it’s flipping. Like it’s trying to move inside my chest. It takes a moment for me to realize it’s because I’m not breathing. “Yeah, I did.”
“So, it’s normal for moms to be bitches?” Dean asks me, and I glance at him in my periphery, picking at my nails. That’s all he’s getting right now. He doesn’t let up though, eager to push the conversation. “I’m guessing mine’s going to be worse than yours.”
“I was just trying to make you feel better,” I respond half-heartedly, and he gets a chuckle out of it that makes me smile.
“Well, shit,” he answers and then glances up at the large green sign on the side of the road.
“So?” I say, drawing out the word.
“What?”
“What’d she do that made her a bitch?”
“Oh,” he says and his tone drops again. “She just is.” I nod once, thinking he’s going to leave it there. But as I pull a book out of my bag to read, committed to sitting in silence the entire trip, Dean proves me wrong.
“I didn’t think she was when I was younger.”
“Most kids love their moms.” I think about how my mom was my hero. She was the one who was supposed to make it all better.
“She was bad with money; my parents were always fighting about it.” He glances at me and then asks, “You really want to know?”
Placing my hand on the book in my lap, I tell him, “Consider me the in-car shrink. Tell me everything.”
“There’s not much to tell. My mom’s a greedy bitch. My dad got sick and my mom cashed in on his insurance.”
“Is he okay?” I ask hesitantly, and Dean shakes his head.
“He died a long time ago,” he tells me and before I can even tell him I’m sorry, before I can share that my dad’s gone too, he keeps talking. I recognize the nature of his voice, how it’s like a story. Someone else’s story he’s telling. It’s so he can pretend it doesn’t affect him anymore. And that makes the wound that much deeper. “She couldn’t wait for it to come. She married a guy more well-off than my father,” he says and then lowers his voice to continue, “who was a fucking asshole.”
I’d laugh at his tone and the way he said it, but he can’t hide the pain in his eyes.
He keeps going. “And then he died, so now she’s all alone.”
“Your stepdad?”
“Yeah, his name was Rick.”
“She has bad luck with men,” I tell him in a monotone and then quickly add, “I’m sorry. “
“It’s all right. Rick was an asshole and a drunk.”
“Well, about your dad and everything. I’m really sorry.” I mean every word and that unsettled feeling that bothered me when we first got in this car comes back, but I push it down.
It’s not about me right now. That thought makes it feel better.
He tries to shrug it off but I feel compelled to at least reach out to him. Shifting in my seat so I’m leaning close enough to him, I rest my hand on his thigh. My fingers move rhythmically against the rough denim. “I really am sorry.”
A warmth spreads through every inch of me when Dean covers my hand with his, his other twisting on the steering wheel. His touch on my hand starts at the very tips of my fingers but then spreads when he picks up my hand and kisses the tips of my fingers ever so gently. His gaze never strays from the road. He’s a beast of a man. A brute. It makes the soft touches that much more meaningful.
He sets my hand back down and it’s soothing. Deep inside of me, something feels not so broken anymore. Like a kindled fire come back to life.
“I’m all right,” he says like that’s the end of it. But I want more now.
There’s something about knowing other people’s shit that comforts me. Like if they can go through all that and come out okay, then maybe I’ll be all right. It’s why I like to read thrillers and dark romances. No matter how bad it gets, when it ends, usually there’s a happily ever after. That doesn’t happen every time, though.
“Why does your anger management therapist,” I say, repeating the words like he said them but it doesn’t budge the stern expression on his face, “want you to go see her?”
“My uncle called and said I should see go her since Rick died. He said she’s not handling it well.”
“So, not awkward at all,” I say then shrug and try to bring back the playfulness.
His rough chuckle eases the tension that’s nearly suffocating me; the feeling that we’re rapidly approaching being too close. “I told her I’d just stop by but that we also had other plans.”