Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I’ve been too quiet for too long.
“Okay.” She holds up her hands and backs off. “You don’t have to decide today. I know it’s a long process. I’ll leave, even though I don’t want to leave. I’ll go back home and pack up and get ready to move. I’ll talk to my family. They’ll understand. I’m coming back here, though. I’m getting an apartment, but I don’t need your money to do it. I have some savings, and it will get me through until I can get a job.”
“Too good to take it, are you?” I purposely look at the floor because she looks far too enticing in that damn bath towel.
“I’ll ask you for it if and when I might need it, but right now, it’s not what I want. You’re what I want.”
How does she do that? How does she make that sound so believable? She could take as much money from me as she wants. She could go anywhere in the world. She could buy herself whatever she desired. She could literally live in her dream home and drive her dream car and never have to work a day in her life again. My money could provide her with anything, but instead, she’s looking at me like I’m what she wants, and she’s doing it with total conviction. And not for a lack of imagination or ambition. Not for a lack of intelligence or drive or an inability to make life into a bigger picture. That’s the easy road. But looking at me with such sincerity and honesty? Definitely not the easy road. I’m the crap chute.
“I don’t need you to come back here,” I say to Aspen.
“Yes, you do,” she insists.
“I could stop you.”
“No, you can’t. It’s a big city. I can move anywhere in it as it fits my budget and as I please.”
“You’ll break your parents’ hearts.”
She blinks hard at that, but like everything else, she swats it away and refuses to break. “I won’t. They’ll miss me, but they’ll understand. It’s not forever. I’m a grownup, and there are many varied and reliable methods of communication. We’ll all learn how to be okay.”
No. I can’t let this happen. It doesn’t matter how much I might want to believe her or stop literally and figuratively fighting. She can’t possibly know I’m what she wants. She can’t throw her life away. She can’t come here. Not for me. I can’t believe her. I know that, at the heart of me, I’m unwanted and unlovable. I’m stained.
If shoving her away to protect her is the only option left, then that’s the option I’ll have to take.
“I don’t want you to. I don’t want you, Aspen. I. Don’t. Want. You,” I say harshly.
The hurt is bright in her eyes, and it’s a lance to my heart. The lesions are instant. I’m bleeding out on the inside and drowning in my own blood. God, it hurts.
And then.
She laughs.
She laughs so hard that she has to grasp her towel in the front and bend over.
She laughs so hard that she snorts.
She laughs so hard even as she does a little dance from foot to foot. “Oh god. Oh my god,” she wheezes. “I’m going to pee myself if you don’t stop that. Your attempts at being big and scary are so funny. For the love of rotisserie chicken, Patrick McDonald, yes, you freaking do want me to come back here. You do want me to stay. You do want to be wanted, and you do want a family. You do want good things out of life. And you do want beauty. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have let me in the front door. You wouldn’t have married me. And even if you’d realized your mistake too late, you could have put me in the pile of stuff to donate and then shipped me out of here, but you didn’t. Right now, you’re only fighting so hard because this is the breaking point. This is the point where it all feels worse before it gets better. I promise. Just come back to Atlanta with me, and you’ll see. We’ll figure things out from there. You’re my friend for life, no matter how foul you want to try and be.”
I don’t know what happened. One minute, I’m standing here completely in awe of this woman, and the next, I have to stumble back to the counter and catch myself. One look in the mirror confirms everything I was afraid of. I don’t look like me. My eyes are far too shiny, too misty, too hopeful. I can see everything she’d laid out in my mind. All I have to do is reach for it. Believe it. Say yes. Trust.
Jace gave me the greatest gift he could have ever thought to give. His family. He knew I needed one. He always knew I’d need one. I thought I left him alone by getting out, but he knew that when I left, I’d be the one alone on the outside.