Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
And there was the simple fact that it was time. Living on the road wasn’t real life. It was a vacation from it. Sure, I had nightmares. I still felt hollow, fractured, and I still struggled with Colby’s casual affection. I was still plenty damaged. But I wasn’t having to live a responsible life. I wasn’t around people who cared, who would urge me—gently—to face what happened, to heal. And then there was Colby and me.
We fought, we fucked, we ate good food, saw amazing places. We were cosplaying as a couple. But back in Garnett, again with those people who cared, in an environment we were both used to … that’s when shit got real. That’s when we would be put to the test, see if we could survive reality. We didn’t talk about it, but I got the impression he understood that too.
The morning we woke up in our last hotel—glitzy and indescribably luxurious, in the middle of the New Mexico desert —we made quiet, intense love that wasn’t like the fucking we had been engaging in.
Making. Love.
I came hard and intense. I had to fight myself from crying afterward. From telling him that I loved him. There were half a dozen times since we left my parent’s house when I’d forced those three words down. They sat in my stomach like razor blades. I preferred them to cut me on the inside than set them free.
Anyone who said love was something brilliant, beautiful and something to be sought was a fucking idiot.
Then again, not everyone who fell in love had been tortured by a deranged serial killer. That might’ve skewed my view on it a little.
The second we made it to Garnett town limits, my body relaxed. I’d been tense the entire day, on the edge of a panic attack. As much as I wanted to see everyone, I didn’t want to face up to the consequences of that. Seeing the hurt on my friend’s face, the reality of how long I’d been gone, what I’d missed. Add to that, I didn’t think I could handle the one place in the world I’d felt the most at home being poisoned by what had happened there.
It turned out I was giving that fuck far too much power.
Sure, there was a prickle underneath my skin as we passed the police station, but that was nothing compared to the way the air fueled me. The way I felt like I could breathe again.
Okay, it probably had a lot to do with the fact that my arms were around Colby.
I rested my head on his shoulder and watched the town fly by and the desert take its place. I hadn’t had to tell him where to go first.
Violet and Elden’s house was breathtaking. She’d outdone herself with what she’d created. The sprawling house seemed to blend in with the landscape around it, feeling both incredibly modern and classic at the same time. The last time I’d been here—a fleeting, rushed visit in order to make sure I didn’t glimpse Colby—they were only just moving in, and the garden had not grown to encircle the house with wildflowers.
The front door opened before we were even parked, then Violet sprinted out of it, her dark hair flying behind her.
I launched myself off the bike as soon as Colby parked, tossing my helmet aside and crossing the short distance between us.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re finally here!” Violet cried, her arms locked around me.
She smelled of the same perfume she’d worn for years, the same expensive shampoo I’d always stolen from her.
Her body was warm, her embrace full of love. My skin recoiled a little, to be sure. The dirt lodged underneath my flesh felt gritty against my clothes. I ignored that.
We hugged for a long time. Until a small voice spoke.
“Momma?”
I froze, dislodging from my best friend to see Elden, standing alongside Colby, with a small, wiggling toddler in his arms.
The last time I saw her, she was smaller. Much smaller. Her hair was longer and dark like Violet’s. Her eyes were wide and gray like her father’s. She was wearing cowboy boots and a pink dress. And she was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen.
But she also looked like a little human, taunting me with how much I’d missed of her life. How much Violet had grown as a person and as a mother.
Tears bit my eyes, but I forced them back, mindful of the inquisitive gaze of the two-year-old, peering at me with confusion and wary interest.
“Baby girl, it’s your Auntie Sariah,” Violet cooed, squeezing my hand. “You remember her.”
Willow frowned at me with an expression so like her father, it was uncanny.
There was no recognition. I was just a fleeting character in her life full of people who were constant, reliable. I was just some chick who bought her expensive gifts she couldn’t even comprehend and left before she could commit me to memory.