Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“No,” I argued. “It wasn’t… I just…”
“Take your time. They’ll hold the place open for a while longer.” I nodded. Then I looked down at myself. I was covered in blood. My hands…
“The keys,” I said, not knowing what the hell else to say. I had left some blood on the keys. On a Steinway. I grabbed my shirt and started rubbing at them to get them clean. But the blood on the shirt only made it worse. Lewis put his hand on my arm and stopped me.
I was shaking again. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, pulling myself together.
“I’ll fix it, Cromwell. Get yourself home and cleaned up.”
I opened my eyes and walked to the door. Just as I was about to leave, I turned to Lewis, who was staring at the flask. “It was good,” I said gruffly. “To talk to someone who understands.”
He smiled. “Or just anyone at all.” I nodded as Lewis stared back at the flask. “Your mother was always that person for me.”
My eyebrows pulled down. “My mum?”
“Yeah. She never told you I knew her?” His face paled a little. Like he’d just shared something he shouldn’t have. I shook my head. I had no clue what he was talking about. “We went to college together. That’s how she knew me. How your father knew to contact me.”
“She never said.” I wondered why she hadn’t. Then again, I had never asked her. Just assumed she’d heard of him from the world I was in. But there was no space in my mind to wonder any more about that tonight.
“Night, Professor.” I left him in the room with his demons and temptation. I walked back to the dorm, my feet feeling like heavy weights. When I got back to the room, it had been cleaned, I assumed by the college’s cleaning staff. Only faint stains remained on the wooden floor where Easton’s blood had pooled. The debris he’d thrown around the room had been swept up. I showered then sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the black paint he’d thrown on the walls. At the swirling eyes that he’d drawn every few feet. Eyes that watched every move I made.
Exhaustion wrapped around me, and I lay down in my bed. I pulled out my phone, brought up Bonnie’s name, and sent her a simple message:
I love you.
Simple. Yet to me, it meant the world.
* * *
I blinked awake to the sound of knocking at my door. I rubbed my eyes and threw back the cover. Light from the sun sliced into the room around the edges of the thick curtains. Birds were singing.
I opened the door, and I stilled. Bonnie sat in her chair, looking at me. I swallowed. “Farraday,” I rasped. At the end of the corridor, Mr. Farraday was walking away. He gave me a tight smile.
A hand slid into mine. Bonnie was looking up at me, her eyes tired, her lips shaking. “Bonnie,” I whispered and held her hand tight. I only let go so I could move to the back of her chair and push her into the room. As I shut the door, I heard a tiny gasp slip from Bonnie’s mouth.
My stomach sank. Bonnie’s hand moved to her mouth as she stared at the black-smeared wall. I tried to move around her to stop her from looking to the right. But I didn’t make it in time. Silent tears tracked down Bonnie’s cheeks when she saw the bloodstained floor.
I grabbed the blanket off my bed and covered the floor. I bent down to Bonnie and lifted her chin with my finger. Her gaze finally ripped away from that corner. “You don’t need to see that.”
Bonnie nodded her head. But when it fell forward and she buried it into my neck, she unloaded everything. The sobs, the pain…everything.
I held her tight, feeling the rising emotions I could never fight off. She cried so much that she suddenly struggled to breathe. I cupped her face and pulled her back from me. Her cheeks were mottled and her skin was turning white from too little air. “Breathe, baby,” I said. Panic swelled inside me, but I kept it under control as Bonnie started trying to take deep breaths.
It took minutes for her to calm enough for her breathing to return to what now passed as normal.
“You okay?” I asked. Bonnie nodded. Her eyes were dull with exhaustion. “Come to bed.” I made sure the chair was close enough to the bed so that her IV and oxygen would be okay, and then I picked her up. Her arms draped weakly around my neck. I paused, just drinking in her face. How pretty she was. Bonnie turned her face to me and gave me a small smile. She killed me then. Killed me with one simple smile.