Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“What?” Colten shakes his head. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you … are you giving her permission to die? To kill herself? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I don’t feel his anger and rage. I feel empowered.
“Get up. Get dressed. We’re leaving.” Colten grabs my arm while he stands.
I shake my head.
He squats beside me. “Look at me.” His hands frame my face. “I will not let anything happen to you. We are stronger than this. Do you hear me?” His words bleed with desperation, and it’s heartbreaking.
“You have to make peace with her decision, whatever it may be,” Athelinda says.
Colten ignores her, keeping his gaze on me. “She doesn’t know you. I know you. I love you. We will get through this.”
“How?” I whisper.
He swallows hard while lines dig into his forehead. “Together.”
Oh, Colten …
I let him help me to my feet. Athelinda’s sad smile makes an encore performance. I mirror her expression. Colten can be sympathetic. Agreeable. Sacrificial. He can be a million things, but he can’t be me. He can’t truly understand what this is like for me.
He tears off his gown, no longer caring about Athelinda’s eyes on him. I dress a little slower.
“There is one …”
My gaze slides to her as she starts to speak.
Her teeth scrape along her dry lower lip. “One other possibility.”
“Let’s go.” Colten ties his shoes.
“What?” I ask.
She leans to the side and retrieves her I AM … book. While flipping through the pages, she hums. “The odds would not be in your favor.” Her finger traces with lines of script on the page. “They’d be so much not in your favor that I’m not sure I’d even call them odds.”
“Just tell me.”
Lifting her head slowly, she draws in a quick breath and releases it with one big whoosh. “If you have another near-death experience, it could erase these memories.”
“No. Fuck no. Let’s go, Josie.” Colten’s hand encircles my wrist, but I pull against his tug.
“It can’t be worse than the other option,” I say, opting to not say the actual words.
Suicide. Taking my own life. Checking out.
“Actually, it could. Dying instead of coming back to life is the least of my concerns for you.” She glances down at the book again. “You could experience something just as bad or worse. It’s foolish to assume this is only your second life. You could have brain damage. You could be in a coma, on a ventilator, which would mean your loved ones would have to make an awful decision.”
“Or it could work,” I whisper.
“Josephine, I am a rare exception to any rule. Most people don’t come back from death once, let alone more than once. Your chances of winning the lottery might be better.”
I shake my head. “My heart stops and we start it back up. I’ll take those chances over the lottery.”
“Jesus, Josie …” Colten tugs on my wrist again. “No. We’re leaving.”
“No. That’s not how it works,” Athelinda says. “For you to have even a remote chance of losing the past-life memories, your heart has to stop beating for longer than it did last time. When it’s not beating, your soul shifts through its many lifecycles. It won’t release the one in your head until its time has expired. For that to happen, it has to be longer.”
Colten grabs my purse and my shoes. “We’re out of here.”
This time, I don’t fight him. My gaze locks with Athelinda’s while he pulls me to the door.
She presses her palms together again and bows. “May you find your way in this life … or another life.”
When we get into the rental car, Colten doesn’t start it. He grips the steering wheel and stares straight ahead. “Thanksgiving is next week. Christmas is the following month. Then we’re getting married. I need…” He clears his throat.
I ease my head to the side. His eyes are red, jaw set.
“I need you to be there. I…” he pinches the bridge of his nose “…I need you to be in my life.”
If I died, he’d grieve. My family would mourn my death. Then everyone would slowly move on. That’s how it works in life. There’s a process that follows death. Maybe not everyone follows the process in a particular order or at the same pace, but there’s a process.
This is worse. It’s limbo. This level of uncertainty is torture.
As long as I’m alive with Winston Jeffries in my head, it’s going to feel impossible for Colten to … live. He’ll always wonder if I’m okay. He’ll not sleep well ever again. He’ll never fully concentrate at work. He’ll live in this limbo and pretend that everything’s okay because I’m alive and in his life.
I don’t want to be in his life like this. However, I don’t know that I’m ready to leave. Instead, I have to trust that I’ll know. When the time comes, I’ll just … know.