Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
I thought of my painting, sitting beside us in the gazebo. The blacks and reds, the void that triumphantly drank down your happiness. There was a wall behind me, and I sank down upon it, exhausted. Savannah did too, but not before running her hand through my messy hair.
I linked my hands together in my lap and stared at the cherry blossom grove, at the beauty and the uplifting colors and said, “I don’t know how to talk about that night.”
Savannah reached out and linked her arm through mine. “I’m here whenever you’re ready.”
“You have enough to deal with, Peaches. You don’t need the added weight of my trauma too.”
“It’s not heavy,” she said and squeezed my arm. “If it unburdens you, then it’s the lightest weight in the world.” She kissed my exposed bicep, and the shards of ice that had created an impenetrable armor around me melted in the exact place that her lips had touched.
I felt guilty for even contemplating laying all my trauma at her feet. But here I was, in Goa, at night, beside a dreamlike seaside with a painting that was haunting my every move, and I just needed to purge everything from my soul.
“I wanted to do it for her. But I needed to do it for myself,” Leo’s words rang in encouragement in my mind.
“Nothing was different about that day,” I said, and my vision blurred, forcing me to relive it all in my head. “I went to practice. Then Cillian had a game that night.” I huffed an unamused laugh. “He got MVP. They won—a shutout. Cillian scored all the goals, a hat trick.” I shook my head. “He played his heart out. Now I wonder if he played so hard because he knew he would never play again. Was that his final goodbye to the team he loved so much and the fans who had supported him since starting Harvard?”
My leg bounced in nerves. I’d never talked this much in my life. It was like slicing open my heart and letting it bleed out, willingly. “At the game, I was with my parents. But afterward, I met up with my teammates. Stephan, my best friend, had been invited to a party one of the Harvard guys was throwing, next door where my brother lived off-campus.” I remembered arriving at the party, everyone celebrating. “We’d been to a hundred of them before. My brother was there, of course, but when he saw me walk in, rather than wearing the happy smile he always gave me, his eyes were stormy, and he told me to go home.”
I shook my head, like I was back there living that night. “He’d never been like that to me before. It had shocked me so much. He never sent me home. Always stayed by my side. I just thought he must have been tired—”
My voice cut out and I choked on a sob. “There was a sign, Sav. And I missed it. He’d never been like that to me, ever. He wasn’t the typical big brother growing up. He was always so good to me.” His face came to mind. He looked more like my dad than me; I had my mom’s features. But anyone could tell we were siblings. “He was a good person and was all about family. He never treated me like I was lesser than him. Hell, he never even told me to get out of his room. He didn’t send me away from the frozen pond on our property when his friends came to play hockey. He included me. Always.” I turned to Savannah and saw tears running down her face. Her bottom lip was trembling. “But he never told me he was hurting, Sav. He never told me that. Never told me the most important thing.”
I sniffed back tears and just gave in to the sadness I’d held trapped inside for too long. “He’d never sent me away before that night. But he did then. I should have fought him, asked why he was acting that way. I think I was too stunned. He threw a twenty in my hand and told me to run to the store and grab some snacks for the house.”
I glanced down at my hand and the palm that had held that money. “I didn’t see it at the time, but he’d wrapped his fingers around my hand when he’d put that money in my palm. Tightly. Just a few seconds longer than normal, but I can still feel it. Like a brand.” Savannah took hold of that hand and brought it to her lips, kissing me on the palm. A choked cry escaped my mouth at her touch, at her soft lips kissing that calloused, tarnished skin.
“You’re doing so well,” she said and laid her head on my shoulder. Her body heat seeped into mine, thawing some of the ice.