Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The night air feels like a power pole just dropped into the pool. It’s all static. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if I can. The burn all over my body and the power pole in my own muscles constantly zapping me into a state of near-freaking unconsciousness kind of prevents speech. Even breathing is tough, and every single breath sounds shredded like half-coughs.
“Stay?” I pant.
“No.”
“I can…move out. Find somewhere…else. You could rent the place.”
“Thanks, but no. I’ll find an apartment. Somewhere close to my mom. I want to find her and then be there in person. I’ve lost so many years thinking she abandoned me.”
“Your dad?” I ask.
She frowns. “I don’t know. I’m just mad right now, and it’s not a good thing to make decisions while mad, but he’s my dad. I’m going to forgive him. I want to find a balance. Live my own life and still be in theirs. I should have done this forever ago anyway, at least where he was concerned.”
All the pain melts out of my shoulders, but it shoots straight down into my legs. I think it’s making up for it there. “God!” I double over on my side, turning into a C shape, and grab both my legs.
Patience scrambles onto her knees and hovers over me. “What’s happening?”
“I’ll be okay,” I rasp. “In a minute.”
“Whenever I get a cramp, I rub it out. Like this.”
My brain is too broken from the pain in my legs to make a rub-it-out joke. I wouldn’t, anyway. I’m too much of a gentleman. Somehow, through the tangle of my limbs, her hands find my calves. Her fingers start to knead. And darn it, I turn into the softest, most pliable dough she could ever want. I’d let her knead dough me forever.
Oh! Oh, that’s good. And it’s working. My legs are no longer two fiery rocks of terrible pain sucking the life and breath out of me. I feel like they’re no longer two instruments of murderous murder trying to take me out. My muscles are just muscles, not doom calves, and some of the fire releases. I go limp on the concrete. I feel drained. It’s just nice to collapse on it, soak up its heat and allow Patience’s hands to work away the rest.
Now that I can get functioning thoughts into my brain, I feel all the rage I should have felt at what she told me. I want to call her dad a prick to his face, even if I get why he did what he did. Well, actually, no, I don’t get it. Cutting off someone’s mom? What he made me promise was bad enough, but I’m not Patience’s mother. Okay, at the time, I wanted to call her dad a prick too. I’ve thought of a thousand variations of the word over the years. I might have thought the words, but each time, I let the anger go. I tried to understand. He wanted what was best for Patience, while I wanted my best friend to be happy. I couldn’t have everything, and if I had to trust that he would protect her, I wanted to believe he did that a hundred percent. That he cared about her happiness more than anything in the world because that’s what he made me believe. I still want to believe it. I know it’s not simple. I know people are human, and fathers make mistakes. I’m just so pissed that, in this, the person who was hurt the most was Patience.
“Let me help you find your mom.” My voice is still about three octaves higher than it should be. These leg cramps are just about as bad as getting booted in the junk.
“Apollo…” Her hands don’t stop working, and she can’t disguise the excitement in her voice. “You don’t have to do that. I’ve made you feel like you owe me something, and you don’t. I haven’t been nice. I haven’t said a single kind thing. I like your house, okay? I like everything about it, I like your skunk, and I like the spot you chose. I also liked having a breather in my life, I liked the change, and I liked…kissing you. That’s why I should leave.”
I can’t breathe. But it has nothing to do with the pain still in my legs or the water I should be coughing out of my lungs.
I turn my eyes to Patience’s face. Bent over me, her hair like a curtain, I can barely see any of it. I glimpse her nose, peeking through, and the curve of her lips. Suddenly, I don’t feel those cramps anymore. All the pain evaporates. I watch her shoulders and arms, the muscles there working as her fingers try to banish the ache I know is still there. I just can’t feel it because I’m floating. Right up off this cement. Levitating and probably glowing like a straight-up flashlight too.