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You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.

I immediately recognize the words of Austen. I read through a few pages, recognizing quote after quote, lie after lie, so I reach for one of the handwritten pages instead.

That day, day five, is when the weight appeared on my chest. A constant reminder of what I have done, and most likely lost. I should have called her that day while staring at her pictures. Did she stare at mine? She only has one to this day, and ironically I found myself wishing I would have allowed her to take more. Day five was when I threw my phone against the wall in the hopes of smashing it, but I only managed to crack the screen. Day five is when I desperately wished she would call me. If she called me then it would be okay, everything would be okay. We would both apologize and I would go home.

As I read through the paragraph for the second time, my eyes threaten to spill tears.

Why am I torturing myself by reading this? He must have written this long ago, right after he returned from London the last time. He has changed his mind completely and wants nothing to do with me, and finally I’m okay with that. I have to be. I’ll read one more paragraph and I’ll put the lid back on the box, only one more, I promise myself.

Day six I woke with swollen and bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t believe the way I broke down the previous night. The weight on my chest had magnified and I could barely see straight. Why am I such a fuckup? Why did I continue to treat her like shit? She is the first person who has ever been able to see me, inside of me, the real me, and I treated her like shit. I blame her for everything when in reality it was me. It was always me, even when I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I was. I was rude to her when she tried to talk to me about things, I yelled at her when she called me out on my bullshit, and I lied to her repeatedly. She has forgiven me for everything, always. I could always count on that and maybe that’s why I treated her the way I did, because I knew I could. I smashed my phone under my boot on day six.

That’s it. I can’t read any more without breaking every ounce of strength I have built since I left him in London. I toss the pages back into the box and slam the lid down. Unwelcome tears spill from my traitorous eyes, and I can’t get out of here fast enough. I would rather call the administrative office and get reprints of all my transcripts than spend another minute in this apartment.

I leave the shoe box on the floor of the closet and walk across the hall to the bathroom to check my makeup before I go back downstairs and face Landon. Pushing the door open, I turn the light on, yelping in surprise when my foot catches on something.

Someone . . .

My blood turns to ice, and I try to focus on the body on the floor of the bathroom. This isn’t happening.

Please, God, don’t let it be . . .

And when my eyes focus, half of a prayer is answered. It’s not the boy who left me that’s lying still on the floor at my feet.

It’s my father, with a needle sticking out of his arm and no color in his face. Which means half of my nightmares have been fulfilled instead.

Chapter twenty

HARDIN

The pudgy doctor’s glasses are hanging from the bridge of his nose, and I can practically smell the judgment radiating off him. I assume he’s still mad that I flew off the handle after being asked “Are you sure you hit a wall?” for the tenth time. I know what he’s thinking, and he can fuck off.

“You have a metacarpal fracture,” he informs me.

“English, please?” I mumble. I’ve calmed, for the most part, but I’m still beyond pissed-off by his questioning and hard stares. Working in the busiest clinic in London, he has surely seen worse than me, but he still glares at me every chance he gets.

“Bro-ken,” he says in a slow voice. “Your hand is broken, and you’ll need to wear a cast for a few weeks. I’ll give you a prescription to help manage the pain, but you’ll just have to wait it out, wait for the bones to knit back together.”

I don’t know which is more laughable, the idea of wearing a cast or that he seems to think I need help managing my pain. There’s nothing that any pharmacist can dole out that’ll help with my pain. Unless they’ve got a selfless blonde with blue-gray eyes on their shelves, they’ve got nothing for me.

AN HOUR LATER my hand and wrist are covered in a thick plaster. I tried not to laugh in the old man’s face when he asked me what color cast I wanted. I remember being young and wishing to have a cast for all my friends to sign their names and draw stupid pictures in permanent marker across; too bad I didn’t have any friends until I found my place with Mark and James.

Those two are so different now than they were as teens. I mean, Mark is still a dipshit, his brain fried from too many drugs. Nothing will reverse that. But the changes in both men are quite evident. James is pussy-whipped by some med student, which is something I would never have expected. Mark is still wild, still living in a world without consequence, but he’s softer now, more relaxed, and comfortable with living the way he is. Sometime in the last three years they both lost the hardness that used to cover them like a blanket. No, like a shield. I don’t know what caused that change in them, but given my current situation, I don’t welcome it. I expected the same assholes from three years ago, but those blokes are nowhere to be found.

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