Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“I’m fine.” I open the fridge and pull out a few bowls of leftovers.
“What’s in Tennessee?”
I set the bowls on the counter and turn toward him. It’s not that I’m afraid to tell him … okay, I’m a little afraid. “It’s where Winston Jeffries killed all those girls in the late 1800s.”
Colten covers his face with one hand, hiding his frustration behind it before letting it fall to his side. “Josie—”
“You said you’d take me anywhere if I agreed to marry you. No stipulations. If you’re going to try to talk me out of going, then I’m going to renege on saying yes to your proposal.”
The muscles in his jaw flex. He can gnash his teeth all he wants. It won’t change anything. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “And what are we going to do there? Get permission to exhume the dead bodies so you can study them?”
“We can’t get permission to exhume bodies that haven’t been found.”
“You said they were buried in a cemetery.”
“Yes, but to my knowledge, no one else knows that.”
“Jesus, Josie …” He shakes his head. “Do you hear yourself?”
“You didn’t experience what I did.”
Colten eyes me with a mix of pain and frustration. “Are we going to every cemetery we can find? Most that probably weren’t there in the early 1900s? Are we going to churchyards that weren’t churchyards when this Winston guy killed these girls? Are we going to—”
“I don’t know!” I turn, feeling the same level of regret that’s on Colten’s face for pushing me this far. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
He sighs. “I just don’t want to feed your …”
“My? My what? My craziness? My insanity?”
He glances at the ceiling for a few seconds. “I want you to get better, not worse. I feel like …” Returning his gaze to me, he frowns. “I feel like you’re chasing the boogieman. A year ago, Reagan was so afraid of the boogieman. Well, I think she just called it a monster. So when I had her with me, I promised to stay up all night, standing guard at the end of her bed. After she fell asleep, I went to bed. I woke early the next morning to return to the end of her bed before she woke up. But she was three. You’re thirty-five.”
I’m hurt that he doesn’t believe me. At the same time, I don’t know what I expect him to believe because I don’t know what’s happening to me. “What if during my near-death experience, I was shown a … vision. A premonition. What if this is not something that has already happened, but is about to happen? Some people have very accurately predicted events in the future. What if I can stop something terrible from happening?”
Colten curls his lips between his teeth while drawing in a long breath. “Do you know how many anonymous tips we get about premonitions? Do you know how many of them come to fruition?”
“How many of them come from people who have had a near-death experience?”
“Josie …”
I hate the sympathetic expression on his face. It’s pure pity.
“For the record, I saw a psychiatrist, and he suggested I go to Tennessee. So even if you think I’m insane, going to Tennessee is not the insane part.”
“The psychiatrist you saw right after the accident?”
“No. I saw one the afternoon you called looking for me. The day I took cookies into work.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
He frowns. “Josie …”
“I didn’t tell you that day for the same reason I’m already regretting telling you now. I hate that look on your face.”
“Listen, there are several other people I know from the day of the shooting who weren’t physically injured, but they’re struggling with some PTSD. Not all PTSD is the same. The mind can do weird things after something so stressful. And if you keep having visions in your sleep, maybe you should see a sleep specialist.”
“Wow, Dr. Mosley. Did they teach you that in medical school? If only I would have gone to medical school, then I would be smart like you. And an expert on the human brain.”
“Josie, don’t do this.”
I pull a plate from the microwave and hand it to him. “I’ll go by myself.”
“You’re not going to Tennessee by yourself.”
I put the other plate in the microwave. “I think we established my age and the ridiculousness of unnecessary fear. Let’s stay with that theme and not get overprotective about me going to Tennessee by myself. Believe it or not, before you came back into my life, I did a lot of things by myself, including live by myself.”
Colten glances over at me while he fills a glass from the fridge’s water dispenser. “You want me to leave?”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, try. Try to care, Josie. I’m done with the games. They were fun for a while, but I’m not really going to let you pity marry me. If you don’t want to marry me, we won’t get married. If you don’t want me living here, I’ll leave.” He sets the glass on the counter next to his plate and sits on the barstool.