Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“Was Mirna your first?”
He scoffed. “Far from it.”
I flashed him a middle finger salute with my free hand. “That’s not what I meant, although I wouldn’t doubt that your first time was with an elderly woman who seduced you with cookies and reruns of the Golden Girls.”
“It was Jeopardy,” he deadpanned, before his face cracked open into a smile. “Would have been cooler if that were true, but if you must know, the truth was I was fourteen when a woman stole my precious virtue.” Preppy got down from his ladder, and crossed the room to pass me the nail gun.
“And what was this lucky lady’s name?” I asked, tacking my side up with a lot more finesse than Preppy had.
“Her name?” He laughed. “Anything I wanted it to be.”
“You lost your virginity to a hooker!” I said. Preppy grabbed me by the waist and brought me down from the ladder.
Preppy opened the top of the filtration system. “I sure did. Best birthday ever, thanks to King. Turned into kind of an annual thing after that.”
I stood there gaping. Not that he’d done it, but that he admitted it.
“What?” he asked, when he saw me staring with my mouth open. “Your family doesn’t have traditions?”
“Something tells me that you don’t have a lot of skeletons in your closet.”
Preppy shook his head. “Nope, I don’t keep evidence.”
Oscar darted out of the room. “Are all pigs that fast?”
“Not sure. He’s the only pig I’ve gotten to know on a personal level.” Preppy stripped some wires while I sat on the floor untangling extension cords. “So what about you, Doc? When did you lose your virtue?”
“What is this, Pride and Prejudice?” I asked. Preppy narrowed his eyes at me. After his admission last night, the least I could do was come clean. “It was…” The look on Preppy’s face told me that I didn’t need to continue, he knew exactly what I was about to say, that I’d lost it when I was raped by Conner and Eric. His jaw tightened and he was white knuckling the screwdriver in his hand so hard, I thought his knuckles were going to pop out of his skin. Suddenly, his entire demeanor shifted.
“So that’s the only time you’ve ever fucked?”
“Way to beat around the bush about it,” I said dryly, biting my lip as embarrassment and shame washed over me. Suddenly, Preppy was crouched down in front of me. He lifted my chin so I could face him. “What?” I asked, as he searched my eyes.
He cleared his throat and for a second I thought he was having a stroke, because I’d never heard him go quiet for so long. He took a deep breath and held my gaze. “Doc?”
“Yeah?”
“I volunteer as tribute.”
Oscar came darting back into the room, running around and bumping into everything, squealing this high-pitched death scream, like he’d just escaped the slaughterhouse and was running for dear life. I was about to ask what was up with him, but before I could form the words Preppy was on his feet running down the hall. I was close on his heels, but felt like everything was moving in slow motion, including me. Frame by still frame, the realization of what was happening was revealed. Preppy’s voice calling out Mirna’s name. Oscar’s squeal as he pushed passed me in the hall.
Mirna, laying on the kitchen floor.
Blood pooled around her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY
PREPPY
Dre was quiet when we followed the ambulance to the hospital. She was quiet when we sat in the waiting room. She was even quiet when the doctor came out from behind swinging double doors, calling for Mirna’s immediate family. We followed the doctor back through the doors to a room with a glass wall, the pale blue curtain peeled back, revealing a complicated web of tubes and what could have been Mirna somewhere underneath. Dre pressed her forehead to the glass. “We’re going to monitor her,” the doctor said. “She’s stable for now, but the next forty-eight hours will tell us more. She hit her head when she fell and we stitched that up.” She was a young Asian woman with a high bun in her hair, and at least three pencils sticking out of it. She didn’t look much older than I was. “But just know that even if she survives, the chances of a full recovery at her age, with her pervious diagnosis of dementia, isn’t likely. If the next two days go well, then she’ll be here for a couple of weeks. If she’s still stable after that then we’ll discharge her, but she’ll need around the clock care.” She looked up from her clipboard to Dre, whose eyes were still on Mirna, and then to me. “Probably for the rest of her life.”
“She’s been on the waiting list for Sarasota Assisted for months,” I explained.