Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“He’s actually a big name in horror. Since I was a total unknown, my editor sent it to her other authors, so I was lucky to get that. But…yeah. I never asked about the meme, but I wondered, too.”
“Oh, that’s just the best thing ever.” She wipes her eyes. “I’m going to get it on a T-shirt now. Is the description accurate—this is what’s in the book?”
I stiffen. “Yes.”
“You made us vampires?”
My neck’s so rigid, it feels like my head will break off when I nod.
She begins giggling again.
Relief eases the tension that locked me down. “The real villain is the mother. The girls are just sad and creepy. And the hero’s father is a raging narcissist and serves as the secondary villain—because he was the only one around when Neil’s fiancée was killed in an accident before the story opens.”
“Oooh. Was it really an accident?”
“I guess you’ll find out.”
“Where’s his mother?”
“Long dead. But also accidentally killed.”
“I’m definitely reading this. Is it your first book?”
“Yeah. And I’ll admit it’s a bit rough around the edges. I also think writing it was just…therapy. Or at least cathartic. None of the others have been so close to home. Though there’s always some of me in each book. You’re really going to read it? You don’t have to for my sake.”
“Maybe it’ll be therapy for me, too,” she says quietly, then looks to the stack still on the side table, and suddenly smiles.
“What is it?”
“It’s just, when first saw them here, I thought: horror isn’t exactly the best thing to read out in the woods alone. Yet here I am. About to read one.”
“True. But you’re not alone now, are you?”
Abbie
Abbie
You’re not alone now, are you?
Over the next day, I think of that again and again. You’re not alone now, are you? Because I came out here to be alone. And yet Reed telling me that I’m not alone feels like the most comforting thing that’s ever been said.
Maybe because I wasn’t just seeking solitude—I was seeking safety. And I found that here, even though I’m not alone. Because he is what feels safe now.
Reed Knowles.
He’s working at the table when I finish his book after dinner, then sit staring into the fire. I can see exactly what he means about catharsis. Although his catharsis probably looked different, there’s so much in the story that resonates with me. Sometimes painfully. Probably because there’s so much truth in what he’s written. So much truth, in a book about vampires.
I don’t know if I’ll give fiction in general another whirl. But I’ll definitely keep reading his.
And I can’t hear him typing. I peek around the side of my armchair, find him looking at me, his headphones set aside. So he’s done for the night. I hold up his book.
“I finished. Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.” He rises from the table and casually says, “Especially if you say that after reading my prose, you’ve fallen violently in love with me.”
Blindsided. “Do you want me to fall in love with you?”
He stops dead in the center of the cabin. Staring at me. First with surprise—because I’m guessing he threw out that violently in love thing as a self-deprecating joke, considering that he’d called the book rough around the edges, but he wasn’t expecting my response—then with a sudden, piercing longing.
As if he does want me to fall in love with him.
I don’t know what to do. Or say. My heart’s hammering away—with excitement or terror. I’m not sure which. Maybe both.
Reed blinks. The longing recedes and his gaze sharpens. Perhaps seeing my own startled response. “Too soon?” he says gruffly.
I nod. Trying to catch my breath. “Too soon.”
“So we’re talking about the book?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” He scoops me out of my chair, turns and sits—holding me curled up on his lap. I feel like my heart rate might never calm down. “This all right?”
“Yes.” More than all right. “Hot Biscuit Slim might get jealous, though.”
“Let him. So are you about to throw that in the fire?”
“No. I liked it. And I see what you mean—about it being therapy. It was a little bit for me, too. Especially…in deciding what to do.”
“About your mom?”
I lay my head on his shoulder. Partially because I love the way he’s holding me, partially to hide my face. “There was a passage in there about the vampire mother. It went something like, ‘Sometimes the world is a better place when someone is born into it. And sometimes the world is a better place after someone leaves it.’ And so I was thinking about my mom and—”
His hand tightens on my knee. “I didn’t mean that she should die, Abbie.”
“Oh, I know. But I think it’s accurate in the sense of my world. That my little, personal world will be better without certain people in it. And that includes her.”