Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
The whole day I tried my best to keep my mind off what date it was. My birthday. Molly and Harry knew of my birthday struggles, and they went out of their way not to wish me a happy birthday. I was grateful for that. All I wanted to do was get through the day without any reminders of my mother or Anna popping up in my mind. I wanted it to be just another Saturday. Nothing more, nothing less.
Though the dimmed house lit with fairy lights told me it was about to be the complete opposite of a normal day.
“Theo?” I called out, confused by the setup. I looked around and saw lights shaped like butterflies, all in different colors wrapped around the arched doorframe leading to the dining room.
“In here,” he replied, the noise coming from the dining room.
The second I stepped into the space, I gasped slightly, seeing even more butterflies and lights filling the space. They dangled from the ceiling, from the cabinets, and wrapped around the tables and chairs. Sitting in the middle of the table was a display filled with even more colorful butterflies. And against the wall? A banner that read, “Happy Birthday, Willow.”
My heart sat in my throat as I stood there, dumbfounded.
“What is…?” I started speaking, but my words fumbled against my tongue and they faded away as overwhelming emotions filled my chest. My eyes burned as I read the words on the banner.
Theo stood wearing a burgundy shirt paired with tan pants. His hands were in his front pockets, and an “almost” smile sat against his lips as he cleared his throat. He rocked back and forth in his brown shoes as he gestured toward me. “You left your ID on the coffee table a few weeks ago, and I saw your birthday was coming up. I figured this could be a good time to apologize. I’m sorry, Willow. I’m sorry for how I treated you when you first came here and how I treated you up until we started fishing together. I-I…” He paused, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, they were the calmest of blue, with so much gentleness to them that I almost choked on my next breath. “You just remind me of someone I once knew, and I think that’s hard for me. So this is my apology. Not that this will make up for the way I treated you, but I thought I’d throw you a birthday dinner.” He gestured toward the table. “I even cooked the forty-incher northern pike to…” His words faded as he took a step in my direction. “Why are you crying?”
I hadn’t even known the tears were falling down my face. I hadn’t even known that I was breaking so deeply on the inside that the result of my tarnished spirit was leaking from my eyes. I parted my lips to speak, and my voice cracked as I said, “I hate my birthday.”
Seconds after the words left my mouth, I began to sob uncontrollably, my body shaking as I covered my face with the palms of my hands. My knees began to buckle, yet before I could hit the wooden floors, Theo’s arms wrapped around my body, and he pulled me up. He held me in his arms as I fell apart against him, tugging on his shirt, trying to gasp for air when every breath felt like a struggle.
“I’m so-so-sorry,” I muttered, trying to choke out an apology for breaking so intensely, but Theo soothed me. He didn’t let go.
“Don’t apologize. Don’t try to explain. Don’t worry. I got you. You can break down here,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “I won’t let you go. I won’t let you fall.”
So I did as he said.
I fell apart.
I broke.
I shattered.
And he kept his word.
He didn’t let me fall.
CHAPTER 17
Theo
Willow cried in my arms in the dining room for close to an hour. I didn’t pressure her to talk or have her try to explain where all of her emotions were coming from. I let her fall apart, and I held her until she was ready to pull away.
“Oh, gosh. I’m sorry,” she muttered as she finally released me. I idiotically missed her touch the moment she took it away. Her eyes fell to the table, and she placed her hands on top of her head. “Oh no. Your forty-incher. It’s probably ruined.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. I know how much you wanted that and how unique of a fish it was to catch.”
I waved it off. “Nah. Catching a forty-incher is a normal event for me,” I lied. “It probably wouldn’t have even tasted good anyway.”
She frowned.
I hated her frown.
I much more preferred if she went back to her smiling self again. Something about seeing her sad made my chest ache. I wanted to know more, though. I wanted to know what made her crack. I wanted to know the demons she’d worked so hard to keep hidden from everyone. I wanted to know the shadows of her soul that kept her mind imprisoned.