Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
She did save me. Had Tennessee Common not come back into my life when he did, I’d have definitely been a whole lot worse off.
***
I was blaming the run-in with my mother for my lack of tact when it came to broaching the subject of my suspicions.
If I’d been in the right frame of mine, I would’ve never brought it up at all.
But one of Johnny’s comments about how Hank had looked just like him had my feathers getting ruffled.
And I opened my fat mouth before I’d had time to think about what I was saying.
Then he’d asked me to throw the trash away when he was standing right next to it, and I can’t say that it was one of my finest moments.
“Johnny,” I hesitated. “There’s just something that’s not right here,” I admitted. “Why did she say that he was yours so fast? I mean, she’d let all this time pass, and then, you find out, and she’s like, ‘Oh! He’s yours!’” I shook my head. “This doesn’t seem right. There’s something more going on here.”
He shook his head. “I think she just saw the writing on the wall. She knew that she’d been found out, so why deny it?”
He had a point, but still. He hadn’t seen the gleam in Rosie’s eyes. He hadn’t seen her practically roll her shoulders and stand up straighter when she saw Johnny’s reaction.
Sure, it didn’t make much sense to lie about it once we’d found out, but there was something else really wrong with this situation. Something really, really wrong.
And Johnny was too confused, too emotionally invested to see it.
“I think…I think you should get a DNA test,” I admitted. “Just in case.”
Johnny glanced over at me. “June, you were the one to recognize this kid as mine. Not to mention, you were the one who started all this. There’s no denying that he’s mine. He has the same eyes, facial features, and skin tone as me and my dad. Trust me when I say that this is a slam-dunk. I don’t need a DNA test to prove it.”
He probably was right…but goddamn. Rosie’s smug look was really, really bothering me.
And I didn’t like that. I’d find out what was really going on, I could promise that.
“It won’t hurt to try.” I kept going when I should’ve left it alone. “Seriously, Rosie is a bitch. This is something she’d do. You have to admit it.”
Johnny, obviously, wasn’t in a very good state himself, because he snapped at me when I’d said what I said.
“Rosie is trying to do what she can to get by. Can I say that I would’ve done the same thing if I’d been the one in her situation? No. Because my mother would’ve been a better bet than a grunt like I’d been. I was an E-2 in the Army. I literally made twenty-two thousand dollars a year. Hank’s medical bills were in the upwards to hundreds of thousands of dollars range.”
“She didn’t know he had a medical anything when she first found out she was pregnant,” I countered. “She kept him from you,” I pushed.
“She did what she had to do!” he blew up, standing up from the table so fast that I was staring at him with a little bit of alarm and fear.
He saw that fear and got angrier.
“I would never hurt you,” he snarled.
I knew that.
Logically, I knew that.
But Johnny was a big man. It was hard not to feel intimidated when he was towering over me like that with his anger practically palpable in the room around me.
“Okay,” I lied.
“I think we need to take a step back anyway,” he spat at me as he walked away.
I felt my heart lurch in my chest.
“Johnny…”
But before I could even get out my sentence, he was gone.
***
If anyone could feel even lower than I did at that moment in time, I’d be surprised.
I felt like utter shit since Johnny had walked out my apartment door, and the sad thing was, was that he was right down the hall.
Yet I couldn’t find it in me to apologize.
I sat down and looked blankly at the table in front of me.
We’d arrived, and Johnny had two cups in his hand. Mine—that had somehow been stolen by Hank at some point during Johnny’s goodbye, and Johnny’s.
Both of them sat abandoned on the table after our fight.
I looked down at the cup that used to be mine, bite marks all along the straw.
Then I looked over at the cup that Johnny had used.
An idea formed, and I suddenly couldn’t wait any longer.
I just couldn’t.
I had to know.
I walked out of my room, then knocked on Amanda’s door.
She opened it, her eyes wide.
“Did you just seriously break up while I was locked in my room?”
I nodded.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she burst out, throwing her arms in the air. “You literally just told me two days ago that he had a son, and now you’re telling him to get a DNA test? You told me they looked exactly alike!”