Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 119005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
“I don’t know.” I shrugged nonchalantly and strode toward the door. “I guess neither of us really knows each other. Even back then, we didn’t know each other. I mean, who would have thought Beth Carmichael was such a parent-pleasing wee coward?” I didn’t look at her for a reaction, just walked calmly out the door, letting it close quietly behind me.
As soon as there was a wall between us, my expression fell.
All these years, I thought Beth stopped wanting me because I wasn’t good enough.
Turned out, it wasn’t much better. Gavin was scum. He’d proven that by neglecting me my entire childhood and then preened around the city when I became a professional football player. Telling everyone I was his son, like he’d had anything to do with my success.
Then he’d come looking for a handout.
Gavin Urquhart was my biological father, but he wasn’t my dad.
And it pissed me off beyond measure that not only did Beth break things off when we were kids because of him, but that Braden Carmichael was holding that bastard’s DNA against me.
I’d never been more determined to buy that fucking castle. No matter what it took.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BETH
As soon as Callan walked out of my flat, my anxiety took hold. It grew like a monster in the dark, starting out as a somewhat benign worry of how I would approach my dad about Callan and explain myself. By the next day, I was full-on catastrophizing. To arrange a meeting for Callan with Dad, I’d need to explain how I knew Callan and how I knew he had no relationship with Gavin. This would bring everything back up for my parents, they might start fighting, Mum might even start to think Dad wasn’t over his ex-wife after all, they’d break up, our family would fall apart, Mum would blame me for it, and not only would she never talk to me again, she’d ask all of her friends to drop me as their social media management, and I’d end up family-less, company-less, and penniless.
These irrational thoughts spiraled, my brain conjuring up reactions I knew were out of character for my parents, and yet I couldn’t stop.
My brain wouldn’t stop.
Then there was Amanda. The mere mention of her again had her rising to haunt me. All the mistakes I’d made. How different life would be right now if I hadn’t failed her too.
I had moments of focus in between the obsessive thought cycle, and once I’d convinced myself I was wrong, I immediately replayed all the words between me and Callan. Despite his cool reaction to the truth about why I’d stopped speaking to him in high school, I worried that I’d done some damage there. Why else could I sense that thrum of anger beneath the surface of his indifference? I’d failed him too. Failing people right, left, and center.
Guilt morphed until I imagined that I’d caused Callan such irreparable emotional damage on top of him losing his parents and being neglected by his real father that he refused to make a connection with a woman. In my mind, I was suddenly the reason Callan was only interested in a string of one-night stands, and I was the reason the boy who used to smile at me with cheeky mischief in his eyes had disappeared entirely. Callan had always been serious, but now he was downright brooding.
It felt like something was sitting on my chest, I couldn’t seem to slow my heart rate, and my gut roiled.
Exhausted from trying to juggle work, pretending I was okay, and hiding the fact that I’d gotten caught in an anxiety spiral, I wanted to do nothing but hide in my flat.
But I was stubborn. I refused to let this thing pull me into a dark hole that could last days, weeks even. The worst spiral I’d ever had lasted months. It was during my first year at uni, and it was what made me eventually talk to my GP.
The anti-anxiety meds had helped. I’d stayed on them for a year and then the doc asked me to wean myself off them. I’d managed the rest of my university career without it, though my anxiety hadn’t disappeared overnight. I’d learned to manage it with mindfulness meditation, and working out at the gym helped too. But six months ago, with Social Queens becoming all-consuming, I’d felt the pull of that black hole and the GP had put me back on the medication.
It kept the anxiety from overtaking me, and this was the worst I’d felt while on it.
Ignoring that I’d exhausted myself with my overactive and intrusive thoughts, that my body was weary from all the adrenaline my brain was pumping through it, I decided on Sunday that going to the gym was the thing I needed. Working out had always helped recenter my thoughts since mindfulness taught you to focus on the way your body moved during exercise. Usually, it worked.