Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
That was a very hard pill to swallow, and I was so done.
I was going to live my life by myself. I was going to raise my children.
What I was not going to do was move on with my life with Steel in it.
I couldn’t do it to Steel.
Bad things happened to the people I loved.
I just couldn’t chance it with Steel.
I’d have to do this on my own, and I wouldn’t be putting anyone else’s life in danger.
It made no freakin’ sense, but it was my choice to make.
I just hoped it was the right one.
***
Steel
I hung up the phone and shook my head, a smile on my face for the first time in hours.
She thought she was saving me by leaving. She thought that she was cursed and that she would bring me bad luck if she continued to be with me.
That was what she’d said while I’d been half in/half out of sleep thanks to the pain meds they still continued to feed me.
When I’d woken hours before to her voicemail, I’d laughed.
Yes, she was confused. Yes, I knew she was gone.
No, she wouldn’t stay gone forever.
Why? Because as soon as I was better and I could get out of this bed, I was going to walk out of this hospital and go find her.
It might be next week, or it could be three months from now. It didn’t matter because I would make sure that she knew she was mine.
I would get her back.
And she’d never leave my arms again.
That I could guaran-goddamn-tee.
Chapter 22
If you say ‘fuck it’ before making a decision, it’s probably not something you’ll be proud of.
-Food for thought
Winnie
Four months later
It was my first 10K in over a year and a half. My first race since I’d had my stroke.
My first race that I wasn’t even remotely excited about.
After I had left Steel and moved out of state, I just didn’t find anything exciting anymore. Not when Conleigh passed all of her classes with flying colors or when Cody finally mastered his sight words. Not even when I lost six pounds or when I ran my first mile without stopping.
Seriously, there was nothing inside of me that was even remotely excited about this race.
The only thing that brought me here were a few friends who were in the marathon scene.
This race was to benefit a scholarship in the name of a fallen soldier named Dougie. They’d started this race ten years ago in his memory, and all proceeds from it went into a scholarship fund in memory of the man, who was also a parent, who had died while in combat.
Apparently, it was a big deal that I was coming back for my first race, and ESPN was covering my comeback.
And by attending this race, it would bring a lot of attention from the media to this great cause.
Which explained why I was there when I didn’t run for anybody but myself lately.
“I’m so glad that you could make it.”
I smiled at the two young women. Kayla, the one who’d started this race ten years ago when she was just thirteen, and her best friend, Janie.
I’d gotten a handwritten letter from Kayla begging me to attend. Since she’d gone to so much trouble to not only track me down but to also explain the race to me in a personal message, I’d agreed to attend.
Now, I was nervous as hell.
10K was pushing it for me right now, but I didn’t want to let on that I was nervous about it.
I was leaps and bounds from where I had been a year ago, or hell, even just six months ago.
I never thought I’d be able to walk again, let alone run, but here I was.
I was back, and I was scared.
The gun sounded, and I nearly fell.
My hands hit the ground, and I looked up to see the entire stream of racers passing me by.
I got up and ran.
By mile five, my legs were jelly.
I hadn’t felt my right foot since mile four, and my left thigh was screaming at me to quit.
But I wouldn’t quit.
I wasn’t in last place as I had feared I would be. Hell, I wasn’t even in the middle of the pack.
I was fifteen to twenty people out from first place.
I knew I wouldn’t win.
Hell, I knew that I wouldn’t even get close to the man who was running the fastest—a male around my age named Raphael according to Janie.
He hadn’t even broken a sweat, I didn’t think.
He’d fallen back to talk to me a few times, checking to make sure that I was okay before he’d then hurry back into his previous position.
At first, it was nice.
Now, I was just angry that he could speed up and slow down as he’d done…multiple times.
Who the hell could run like that?