Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
His juvenile insult prompts me to thoughtlessly smirk.
“And to go along with everything else, I really don’t wanna be in my 60s wondering why I can’t spend the holidays or am not spending the holiday with my only brother.”
It’s hard to deny the proclamations create confusion.
Disbelief.
Uncertainty.
I don’t know if this goes on the list of things that I hate…but there’s an annoying little voice telling me not to let this end up on the too long list of shit I regret.
“I don’t want the relationship we used to have. It was fucked up. Unhealthy. I want something better. Something…,” his ability to always say the perfect thing finally fails him, “just…not that.”
Rather than retort, I merely acknowledge the request by nodding.
“Whatever’s keeping you here…Whatever’s stopping you from finishing this program…Whatever…nightmare you won’t face in the daylight, I’m asking you to please face it. To let it go. To get the fuck out of this place.” His blue eyes, one of the only physical traits we share, bore into me. “It’s time for you to really move on. Start over. Live your life the right way, whatever that fucking means to you. I’ll help you in any way that I can. I promise.”
The entry of a new foreign word to our relationship pushes around the piece of hope I thought had been completely demolished.
“You’re already clean, I just need you to stay that way when you get out. And if you won’t do it for yourself and you won’t do it for me, then please do it for the blonde hair, blue-eyed little girl with a huge ass bow in her hair that should get to finally meet her uncle. That should get the chance to love him. That hopes she has cousins to play with some day.”
There’s no stopping my stare from shooting away from all the raw emotions of his.
At a nearby table, slightly closer to the entrance for the visitors, I notice a man in his forties and woman roughly the same age, clutching hands tightly. She’s the one on the inside. He’s the one waiting. He’s the one with tears on his cheeks, begging her to come back to him.
Up until this very moment, I didn’t think anything was waiting for me on the other side of those fucking sliding doors. It’s what made ending it all a very palpable possibility. However, knowing that there is should change everything.
I’m just not so certain it does.
“I have a four o’clock meeting,” Noah states, glancing at his expensive watch. “Keep in mind what I said?”
This time I force myself to verbally reply, “Yeah.”
My big brother stands, adjusts his cuffs, and strolls away as if he didn’t just give the most important speech of his entire life.
Maybe to him he didn’t.
But it was damn sure the most important one he’s ever given to me.
On my way back to my room, post being escorted into Haven by the same newbie attendee, I keep my attention on the recently polished floors rather than where I’m walking. The weight of Noah’s words is much heavier than the pebble amount it should be. A speech that would’ve been easy to disregard at any other point of my life for some reasons feels more like a bolder on top of the bolder that I already carry around. And while I know how to handle the pressure, the force, the chest crushing inability to breathe, I can’t manage that anxiety the same way in here.
I can’t smoke.
I can’t down a bottle of Wilcox.
I can’t…hit a blunt and bang a blonde until the numbness takes over.
Fuck, I mean I could hit the gym here and run or lift weights or crunches until I’m in too much pain to think, yet the minute the fog lifts I know that these thoughts will start again.
That I’ll be thinking about the little blue-eyed princess who should have an uncle, even if I’m not perfect. The child…the innocent fucking child that has to grow up in the shit storm of the Collins's ways is what’s antagonizing me.
Eating at me.
Nipping at my fucking heels with every step I keep moving.
I used to want children…
I used to want so fucking much before I became fixated on chasing a high, I knew no drug could ever really replace.
“Collins,” Doc’s voice greets, unexpectedly invading my ears.
When I look up, I’m startled by the fact that I’m in the room I should be in.
The one I vowed I would skip today.
Slightly baffled, I mumble, “How the fuck did I get in here?”
“Your feet.” His reply is void of humor despite his humorous response.
“I mean, I…,” honesty weasels its way out, “I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing here.”
“Completing your time.”
I shut the door behind me at the same time I announce, “I meant to go back to my room.”