Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Fuck.
“This isn’t my priority,” I tell her, shoving my phone back in my pocket. When I meet her eyes, just for a second, the hurt there threatens to undo my conviction, and I look away again. “Just stay here, Junie. We’ll talk when I get back, I promise.”
“No need,” she says coldly.
Fuck.
I wish like hell I could stick around and find out what that means, but there’s truly no time. Another text comes through, probably telling me to meet Archer at the office ASAP. But with a lot more expletives. He’s not fucking around.
Neither am I.
“Stay,” I growl back over my shoulder, one hollow, desperate word before I’m running to my car.
25
SWEET GOODBYES (JUNIPER)
I still don’t know what hit me.
How did it all come crashing down so fast?
Dexter’s living room feels like an empty cave without him in it. My chest, emptier still. The kind of lonely I’ve felt before and hoped—I dreamed—I might never have to feel again.
Not with Dexter.
But this is what happens when a girl ignores her basic instincts.
I swore I’d never get involved with another man after Liam, and now look at me.
Look at us.
Look at what we’ve destroyed.
I don’t know how it died so swiftly.
The worst part is, this house is still familiar, glowing with the dead warmth of a love that’s faded out. Until Dex became the world’s biggest jerk, I thought maybe this place could be home.
Now it’s too big and I’m way too small.
But I’ve always been too small.
I don’t cry.
For a second, I don’t think I get a choice. Merciless tears sting my eyes, lodging a lump in my throat and the awful feeling of falling. That freefall lurch your stomach does.
His words lash me in the face.
We’ll talk when I get back.
Anger burns away the urge to ugly cry.
If Dexter thinks he can treat me like that and find me waiting dutifully, he’s so flipping wrong it hurts.
Upstairs, in the spare bedroom where I’ve been keeping my clothes in some pretense that we’re not really living together, I start gathering up my stuff and throw everything into a bag.
Well, not everything. The bigger plants can stay.
I can’t haul everything now.
The smaller succulents come with me, though. Plus, all my clothes, my jewelry, my toothbrush from his bathroom. The folded blue pajamas on my pillow in his bedroom.
Every part of me that fits in a bag.
I imagine his reaction as I work.
Will he wander through the empty house calling my name? Or will the deafening silence be enough to tell him I’m gone forever. And good riddance.
Or when he figures it out, will he walk into the bedroom and sit on the bed with the same deadweight like I’m sitting here now?
Will we be the same person, separated only by hours?
The light will be different then. The room will look greyer and the house will feel colder.
And I’ll be long gone.
The thought chokes me until I lean over, holding my stomach like I can keep myself together. Like my organs aren’t spilling out of my body at the thought of leaving and never, ever coming back here again.
Even Catness yowling loudly and headbutting my ankles doesn’t take the edge off.
Oh God, I’m going to cry after all like this is a real breakup and not just a strange illusion falling through.
Like I’ve got something to mourn besides having a huge, stressful fake fiancé obligation off my shoulders.
It wasn’t real, you idiot, I remind myself, standing and refusing to let the tears gathering in my throat have a say. It never existed. It was a fairy tale for show. You just bought into too much make-believe.
I take my clothes downstairs and pile everything in the hallway. Catness skulks around my legs, staring up with wide, worried eyes until I pick him up.
“Sorry you can’t get too comfortable, boy. But we’ll be settled again soon, I promise.” I give him a furious peck on his furry head and set him down.
I’m packed and ready to go and just luring Catness into his carrier when I realize there’s nowhere to go.
Crap.
I don’t have a functioning apartment anymore. I wouldn’t want to go back there even if my bridges with the landlord weren’t a smoldering ruin.
I need to figure it out fast.
I just need a temporary place, somewhere big enough for my meager belongings, Catness, and a sad collection of succulents.
That thought alone almost makes me crumple. I have a few friends, sure, but I’ve been so busy we haven’t caught up in months. I definitely never told them about this dumb arrangement.
And what would they say if they knew?
My friend, Adrianna, has her shit together in ways I never will. She’s been in a house for two years, happily married, and I’m sure she thought her advice really hit home when I came crying on her shoulder over Liam.