Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
My mom had no money since she hadn’t worked since my father died, and the medical bills had eaten through their savings, so I used mine. I wasn’t working as many hours now that I was back in school, but Rowdy had been padding my account on the low, so it was pretty healthy, leaving me plenty to spare.
Taking care of my mom’s needs seemed like a poor substitution to if I had never abandoned her in the first place, but it was all I could do while I waited for her to wake up.
By the time I finished, the sun was starting to set. My phone rang, and I smiled when my man’s name and picture appeared.
“Hey,” I greeted after hitting accept. “On your way back?”
Rowdy released a heavy sigh. “Yeah, some shit went down, and I’m just leaving now. Don’t wait up for me, aight?”
“Is everything okay?” He sounded tired and pissed off, but that last one was nothing new. “What happened?”
“Just some shit with Joren. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
I ignored the sudden hollowness in my gut, knowing it had something to do with me, and swiftly changed the subject. “Oh, did you check the mail?”
“Yeah.” His tone hadn’t changed, so I knew what his next words would be before he uttered them. “It wasn’t there.”
Rowdy and I were expecting the results from the DNA test any day now. It wasn’t as if either one of us had been in the mood to fuck while waiting for my mom to wake up, so we’d completely forgotten about it.
“Just a few more days then.”
“Yeah.”
The heavy silence that followed said what we were both thinking better than either one of us ever could. The longer we waited for absolution, the more we lost hope. It was possible we were in the dying days of our relationship and would soon face the impossible decision of doing the right thing and letting go or living in sin.
My stomach turned at both possibilities.
I never thought I’d be here—actually contemplating incest.
My throat jumped when I remembered what we did a week ago, the risk we’d taken, and suddenly, I was racing to the half bath in the short hallway that led to the backyard.
There, I emptied my guts into the toilet. There, I cried for my and Rowdy’s soul. And for everything that could have been.
Rowdy was still on the line after I brushed my teeth with a spare toothbrush and dragged myself out of the bathroom.
“You all right?” he asked me flatly. By now, we were both used to my random puking spells. This was the ninth time in a week.
Rowdy presented his shame a little differently. He avoided looking at himself in the mirror.
“Just a little tired,” I responded. It was a lie and a terrible one. Exhaustion didn’t make you lose your lunch. “I guess I’ll see you when you get here?” I didn’t know why I’d posed it as a question.
Perhaps, deep down, I knew that it was best for both of us if Rowdy turned around now and forgot he ever met me.
“Yeah. Talk to you later, baby.” He paused and then added, “Love you.”
My heart twisted in my chest for that moment of uncertainty—not whether he loved me, but if it was right to express it.
“I love you too.”
The doorbell rang as soon as we hung up, and I sighed as I walked over to it. All day, I’d been subjected to well-wishing neighbors offering their prayers for my mom and me. I opened the door without checking the peephole, and pure shock at discovering my ex standing there was all that kept me from slamming it back in his stupid face.
Handsome but stupid and conniving nonetheless. I used to think I was lucky to be Sutton Hayes’s girlfriend. He was Chris Brown’s doppelgänger without the talent and all of the toxicity. He’d even dyed his hair blond and wore a goatee like the singer.
“What are you doing here, Sutton?”
“Well, damn. Hello to you too,” he shot back.
“You have three seconds to tell me what you want before I make you tell it to the door.”
Sutton sighed. “Look, girl. I didn’t come here for all that. I heard about your mom, so I came to check on you.”
“Now you care?”
“I always cared, Atlas. I just…” Sutton stopped himself from saying whatever was on his mind as he thought he could dig deeper inside a hole that had been refilled and cemented over months ago.
“You just what, Sutton? Not that I care, but speak your mind so you can go. That’s obviously what you really came to do since I blocked you.”
And not just his number but on social media too.
I’d been content with simply ignoring him, but Rowdy wasn’t having it once I moved in, and he saw just how much Sutton had been blowing me up while pretending to be couple goals with my ex-best friend around campus and on social media.