Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I wasn’t too high, though, to recognize the feeling of excitement that hummed like a song beneath my skin. Or to hide the fact that just knowing that I was about to hear her voice in melody again for the first time in almost three years filled me with something I didn’t know I was lacking; hope.
I sat for a few seconds once the engine was turned off, looking down at the view that I’d missed, missing her presence next to me, and preparing myself for the song. This was so different from her last release. We were always there for each other for these moments, always doing something special to show each other how proud we were of one another.
I took a deep breath and reached into the glove box for the blunt I left there, which was the lesser evil of the shit I put into my system. My hand shook as I lit up just as the first strains of her song filled the air inside the car.
I didn’t know I was crying until about the third or fourth time I hit repeat. She sounded beautiful, strong, at least stronger than she had on that interview a few weeks ago, but the words. Each one was like a sword to the heart, piercing me deeply. There’s no way the world didn’t know she was singing about me, about our love, about the things I’d done to her.
I was proud and pissed at the same time. And that right there is one of the reasons we didn’t make it. My selfishness, my immaturity, fuck this weed. It’s the only drug of choice that doesn’t numb me but instead brings me such clarity that it’s the only time I see myself.
I bawled in that car like a baby for a good half an hour, my emotions bouncing all over the place from one thing to the next. One minute I was making up my mind to make a rebuttal song; if this is the game she wants to play, let’s play. And the next, my heart was breaking in two for her, for us, and the love we’d lost.
I cried myself out and felt even worse. There was no relief for me, no escape from the images her words had conjured. Even though we’d been split for years now, somehow, this song felt like goodbye, and the shit damn near broke me.
What did you expect, Ryder? Did you think that she would spend the rest of her life pining for you? Hiding herself and her talents away forever? “Yes, dammit!” The steering wheel took the brunt of my anger, and so did my hand, which bled all over me like a stuck pig. I wish I hadn’t listened to this song; I wish I hadn’t come here. How dare she write a song about not loving me anymore? And why does it feel like my heart had been ripped to shreds in my chest?
I jumped from the car just in time to empty my stomach in the grass, her words playing over and over again in my head. I threw up until there was nothing left and still kept heaving until my vision blurred. I didn’t even have the strength to climb back into the car at that moment, so I just passed out on the grass wishing for everything to stop and leave me the fuck alone.
***
*Janie*
“Slow down, Janie; please calm down; you see, look, his car is not even here. He didn’t go to her.” My eyes scanned the area of her driveway over and over again as if Ryder’s car would magically appear. I’d been almost certain that he was coming to her after how he’d acted, but now that he wasn’t there, I didn’t know how to feel.
First, I needed to get my breathing back under control and maybe put my thoughts in order, but that was easier said than done. No one knows better than me how just the thought of him being with her makes me crazy, like legit homicidal. He could be with and do almost anyone or anything else, but she is my limit, and it sucks that this had to happen now in front of everyone when I’d worked so hard to keep up the façade that had worked so well for three fucking years.
It must say a lot to my friends that this was the first place I’d come to find my husband, and if any of this got out, the whole world would probably laugh at me, but right now, I wasn’t in the right head space to give much of a damn about any of that. For the first time in three years, well, since the very beginning, when it was all new to me, I felt the mask slip.