Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“Where are you going next?” he asks.
“Sri Lanka in a week.”
“Never been.”
I find another forced grin. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
“That would be nice.” Zach stops close to me, so close I can feel the heat of his body and smell the fake herbal scent of shampoo. “Yesterday—”
I shake my head a half dozen times. “No. You don’t need to say a word about yesterday. I shouldn’t have … we … it just …” I can’t stop shaking my head. “I’m so sorry.” Everything from my chest to my scalp tingles with emotion as an ocean of unshed tears awaits like a tsunami for me to make it to the other side of the hotel room door. Turning, I reach for the handle, but Zach grabs my arm.
“Not like this,” he says, forcing me to turn back toward him.
My gaze affixes to my feet.
“This isn’t the goodbye we’re going to have after yesterday.” He lifts my chin with his finger. “I don’t know what that meant yesterday. What you want it to mean … what it should mean. But I don’t want to regret it. And I don’t want you to regret it.”
What it should mean …
I don’t know. I can’t be mad at him for not knowing because I honestly don’t know either. For me, it meant everything in the moment, but what is everything? And can something that feels like everything really mean nothing in the bigger picture? The problem is, when I’m with Zach, I can’t see past him.
Letting our gazes lock, I shrug. “I don’t know what it meant, but I want it to mean something. Not a meaningless mistake.”
“Okay,” he whispers. “It meant something. But don’t let it mean that you don’t live your life to the fullest. Okay?”
My face wrinkles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Zach blows a long breath out of his nose. “I want you to be twenty-four. Adventurous. Untethered.”
Untethered.
I scoff. “You want me to sleep with other people?”
He grimaces, it’s slight, but I don’t miss it. “I want you to do whatever you want to do without worrying about me.”
“Without worrying about my husband?” I cant my head to the side.
He rests his hand on his hip and bows his head. “Emersyn … it’s not that kind of marriage.”
Fuck my life.
“It’s not that kind of marriage,” I echo while chuckling past the pain. If I don’t laugh, I will cry so hard I’ll crumble into dust. “Silly me.” I turn and open the door.
When he tries to grab my arm for a second time, I yank it out of his grip. “No! Let me go.” I get two feet out the door with my suitcase before he pins me to the wall, holding my arms to my sides. His fingers slowly lace with mine, his forehead pressed to mine, eyes pinched shut.
“I came to life yesterday. Inside of you … I came to life again. But I’m still figuring out who I am without her. And it’s so fucking hard because I can’t look at you and not see her. I do not want you to wait for me to figure this out because I don’t know if I’ll get there.”
He opens his eyes to a stream of tears marking my face. “I thought I was there. I felt different. Then I lost my ring … and my mind. And I have to figure out why. Why did I not think of her once when I was inside of you, then all I could think about was her? That ring. Her last breath. The hole she left in my chest. And how losing that ring felt like losing her again. But then I look at you, and she’s there for a blink. Your pills are her pills. She was in the hospital. You were in the hospital. Letting her go was the right fucking thing to do. Is letting you go the right thing to do too?”
Not since the night Suzie died have I seen Zach this emotionally crippled. The thick ball of emotion in my throat won’t let me speak; it’s holding back an earthquake of sobs. Tipping my chin up, I capture his lips, kissing him like I did yesterday.
No.
Kissing him harder than I did yesterday.
He releases my hands and grabs my face, giving me everything I’m giving him as I fist his shirt and hold him to me, not wanting to let go.
But eventually, I do.
I let go. Breaking our kiss and grabbing my suitcase handle, I take long, quick strides to the elevator without looking back.
“Babe …” Leah frowns and hops out of bed as soon as I open the door.
I made it. That was the goal—to make it back here before completely losing it.
“Oh no … what happened?” She hugs me as I go into a full ugly cry.