Total pages in book: 178
Estimated words: 170884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Yeah, I said it. But I didn’t mean it.
I spun on my heel because I didn’t want him to see me cry again. He stopped me with, “I left a note.” My feet failed me and I stalled. “It’s just a couple days.” My throat constricted painfully. With my back to him and my feet chilled, he spoke quietly. “I’m coming back.”
My breath left me with a whoosh and my shoulders slumped. I didn’t dare face him.
He went on, “Just a few days. That’s all.” And when I heard him approach, my entire body turned rigid. “I’m coming back, angel.”
Why should I believe him?
Last time I believed him, I ended up burying him.
“I’m not leavin’ you. Not the way you think.” I loathed that I heard sincerity in his voice. “I told you, baby.” What he said next had a fresh stream of tears falling. “Always find my way back to you.”
I hugged myself then, trying in vain to talk through my tears. “Where are you going?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Spent six years without you, angel. Spent those years alone and miserable. Now I got you, got my boy, and I’m fuckin’ happy. I’m not takin’ any risks.” My back warmed as I felt him stand right behind me. “Gonna find someone who makes sure we get at least six more together.” When his hands came down on my shoulders, he uttered, “I’m tired of waiting. I can’t live like this, knowing she’s out there planning whatever the fuck she’s planning. Livin’ with this dread in the pit of my stomach.” He inhaled deeply, followed by an exhale. “It’s messin’ with me, baby.”
Ling.
This was about Ling.
At my silence, he went on, “You know me, Lex. You think I’mma wait for the bitch to attack first? Fuck that shit.” The hands at my shoulders squeezed as he made a negative sound in his throat. “It ain’t my style.”
My feet were freezing, and when I turned, I did it slowly. My damp eyes met his, and I asked quietly, “Why do you think she’s planning something?”
Brutal honesty. “Because I would be.” And the certainty in his voice made my heart stutter.
My eyes turned as desolate as my tone. “You’re not leaving?”
He shook his head slowly and his eyes spoke to mine, holding a certainty in them. And at that moment, confidence surged through me. One I had no right to feel, not with our history. It filled me with hope.
I held my breath.
Past experience told me to fear this man and what he could do to me, but my heart objected so profoundly that it wouldn’t be silenced. I took the objection and kissed it soundly, holding it close, nurturing it to grow.
When he glanced down at his watch, he uttered the words I feared hearing. “I gotta go.” At my unsure expression, he stepped closer, taking his hands and placing them gently on my waist. “I’m coming back,” he uttered earnestly. The hands at my waist squeezed. “And when I do, we’re getting married.” His soft brown eyes searched my strained face, before he ordered gently, “Kiss me before I go.”
Soft promises made with a forked tongue.
No. I shouldn’t have believed him.
Then why did I?
Because it was better than the alternative.
My heart cracked, fissures appearing all over the fragile glass it was made of, and when he looked me deep in the eye and commanded, “Kiss me,” my feet moved without permission.
He lowered his face at the very same moment I stood on my tiptoes, and when our lips touched, so much was said without ever being spoken. My arms wrapped around his neck and I was not letting go. Not yet.
His tender kiss said, “I won’t let you down,” while my desperate lips begged, “Come back to me.”
And when he backed away, carefully pulling my arms off of him, I watched him approach the car and I panicked. “Don’t get lost, okay?”
He snuffled out a soft laugh before looking at me. Really looking at me. “Don’t you know, angel?” The intensity of that look gave me chills. “No matter which map I take, they all lead back to you.”
Jesus Christ.
I was in love with a silver-tongued snake.
My breath hitched as I delayed his departure. “Love me forever?”
He opened the car door and paused. And then he smiled, the beautifully crooked smile that haunted my dreams to this very day. “Till the end of time.” Before he slid into the drivers seat, he muttered, “Wait for me, baby.”
But I didn’t respond because it didn’t need to be said.
And as I watched the car reverse out of my driveway, I came to the sickening realization that I would wait.
I would wait a million years.
My eyes fluttered open sometime before dawn. I reached out, knowing he wouldn’t be there.
Fingers blindly searching the empty side of the bed, I closed my eyes and curled in on myself as my heart ached tenderly, hugging his hoodie to me in the early hours of a lonely morning. I breathed in his heady scent and, eventually, slow as the sun rose, I fell back asleep.