Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
I wish I could find a better way. This is all toxic for us both, but mostly for Hollis. If I leave, I will only see him every other weekend. She’s made it clear she won’t give me extra time. Anna talks a lot of shit about it ending, but she won’t leave because frankly, I’m her damn meal ticket. We are on this hamster wheel of fighting and co-existing. There seems to be no way out.
I take the runs, come home, make sure my son is secure, and then sleep on the couch or the floor in Hollis’s room. The occasions I sleep beside her are few and far between the more time goes on. It is far from perfect, but it’s all I can figure out right now.
Walking in our home, I quietly close and lock the front door behind me. Coding our alarm, I turn it on finding it strange that Anna hadn’t already done so. She loves to scream at me that leaving her home alone leaves her vulnerable to someone hurting her. It’s why I got the damn alarm in the first place. Why not set the alarm when I’m not home? Dropping my duffel bag on the loveseat that is by our front door, I gaze the space. Why didn’t she have the alarm on? Is she home? Where is Hollis?
Our home is a typical three-bedroom, two-bathroom, cookie-cutter, average house. The front door enters into the living room that flows into our kitchen with an eat-in dining area. There is a hallway off the space where the living room and kitchen meet to the right. The first door on the right down that hallway is our guest bedroom, the next door is on the left to the second bathroom. At the end of the hall, it splits with Hollis’ bedroom to the right and our master bedroom and bathroom to the left. From the kitchen there is a door out to our laundry room that leads to our one car garage. Since I didn’t want Anna bringing groceries in the rain, I always parked my bike outside under the small overhang I built to the side of the garage. One day I plan to close it in and make it a bike garage. Well, that was my initial thought. Now, I don’t know that this home will be my forever home … or Anna’s for that matter.
Since getting out of the Marines it has taken a lot for me to keep this house paid for. Until I came to work for Danza and the Hellions that is. Between my full-time work at the shop and these transports I don’t have to worry about which bills to skip this month to keep the lights on. I almost have enough saved to build my bike garage addition and get a second car. Once I get that I’ll just start bringing Hollis to work with me. It’s become a common thing for Anna to drop him off anyway.
The house is silent, too quiet, I think as I move down the hall. At the end of the hallway, I pause and look to my right into my son’s bedroom. His toddler bed sits against the far wall. The car shaped bed is empty.
Instantly, I go on alert.
Anna has been adamant from before he was born that Hollis would always sleep in his own space. It drove her insane the many nights I let him sleep against my chest. She needs quiet for her sleep. If I roll over in the middle of the night, she will wake me up and tell me to sleep on the couch because I am keeping her up. A toddler in her bed is not going to happen. He should be sound asleep in his bed and he’s not.
Where is my son?
As the fear climbs, I go to the left and enter our bedroom. Our queen size bed is against the far-right wall from the door. The bed is completely made with the hunter green comforter in place covered in our pillows and the many throw pillows she loves. The shit has been one of those things I swear she does to irritate me.
I don’t understand why anyone wants all those pillows and they aren’t even comfortable. They are for looks she says, well, who the fuck is looking at our bed other than us? I don’t give a shit about the damn pillows. Shit, I don’t care really if the bed is actually made or not. Naturally, I get up and make the bed, but it isn’t something that will anger me if it doesn’t get done. I prefer to pick my battles and pillows isn’t one I care to bring up.
My bedroom is empty.
Where the hell is my son? Where is Anna? I rush to the garage to find Anna’s car in the garage. How did they leave if her car is here?