Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
“Should I come back another time?” he asks.
The answer is no. He shouldn’t come back. He should go on with his life and forget the game we’ve been playing. Both of us should, because games like this only end in heartache, even if they’re not the final cause of it.
But my heart hurts for how much I want to be touching him. If I were the strong woman I pretend to be, I could tell him the real truth—that it was a mistake to get involved with each other and the best thing we can do now is walk away gracefully.
I don’t feel very strong at the moment. I feel weaker than I’ve ever felt, and I just can’t give him up.
Not right now. What the hell am I supposed to do? Tell him I got fired, I failed my cousin, and my aunt is sick? No. No, I cannot and will not burden him with that when I don’t even deserve him.
“Yes.” I tell him. “Red.” I tell him because I don’t know what else to say. I just want him to know I’m not okay.
Graham takes a breath, and I can’t tell if it’s a disappointed noise or a relieved one. His hands come out of his pockets, and then he puts them back in.
“I’ll leave you alone, then.”
I nod, mostly into the pillow. My bedroom door opens again, and then it shuts.
My heart breaks.
It’s more painful than being fired, more painful than my conversation with Kenzie, more painful than anything else. I can’t breathe because it hurts too much.
I was hoping he would come to me. I was hoping he would see what a wreck I was and just make this feeling go away.
I was hoping he’d fallen in love with me, because I’ve fallen for him, even if I haven’t been willing to admit it.
Graham is the only person I want comfort from right now, and I sent him away, and he just went.
That’s the proof I needed and it hurts. I need to leave. I should have left when Kevin did and made my way somewhere else. I could’ve figured it out; I know that now. But leaving felt like giving up.
Well, sometimes it’s better to give up. That’s obviously a lesson I’ve learned too late. Somehow, I thought that if I had the apartment, I’d at least have something to prove myself, but I don’t.
I have nothing.
I turn over and sob into the pillow until I fall asleep.
Graham
This is why I don’t do relationships. Because what the fuck was that?
She’s not well. I know she’s not well. But she sends me away and…I fucking had to because of a goddamn word? I pace the entrance to my penthouse, staring at the security camera in her hall. What the fuck even was that?
I’ve never felt so inadequate.
I text her to tell me when she's available to talk and I get no response.
I text Brian to tell him what happened and ask what to do and all he can say is that sometimes women are emotional and to give her space.
That doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right. But I have no experience in these matters. I don’t know what the fuck happened, let alone what to do.
It keeps me awake all night. I can’t sleep. I can’t even lie down. I just keep staring at my phone, typing out messages and deleting them.
I’ve been a fool. I took her to meet my friends, but the problem is that I don’t know any of her friends. There’s nobody I can call to find out what happened. If I did, it would be overstepping a boundary. She already safeworded me. Legally I probably committed a crime entering her house like that. Maddie’s never introduced me to any of her friends, she’s only talked about a few people in passing. If she wanted me to meet them, she would have made that happen. I have to remind myself that what we have is an arrangement, and it’s one she needs so she’ll come back. She’ll answer me when she’s in better spirits and she’ll tell me what happened. She has to, doesn’t she?
Uncertainty washes through me and I feel like an even bigger prick assuming money will keep her coming back to me. Fuck!
All through the evening and then the next day she never texts me and never calls.
The only person who does call is Harland Porter.
He calls at one in the fucking morning, and when my phone rings, everything in me lights up. It’s her. It’s her.
But it’s Harland goddamn Porter.
“What is it?” I snap, not caring if he doesn’t like my tone.
“I’ve been up, just going through some things in my head, and I wanted to run them—”
“Harland, if you want to sell me the building, then sell the damn thing to me. If you don’t want to, then stop stringing me along. I’ve had enough of this. You know where I stand. Make up your mind by tomorrow at five, or I’m pulling out.”