Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
“I could just wait out here in case…” I trailed off. In case what? In case she needed me? She was right. She was an adult. And maybe I hadn’t been treating her like one. “Call me when you’re done.”
“I will.” She took another long look at her childhood home and then turned back to me. “Thank you for coming down here with me.”
“Of course.”
Suddenly, she smiled gently. “Is this the first time you’ve skipped class except when you were sick?”
I thought it over for a moment. “I don’t skip class when I’m sick.”
She gave a light laugh, and I was glad to hear it—even if the joke was about how rigid I was about school.
“Good luck, Tori. I really hope it goes well.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you soon. We’ll have a late lunch—my treat. Bye.”
She climbed out of the car before I could tell her that lunch was definitely not her treat. Buying her food wasn’t being overprotective, was it? It was just part of being a friend.
Because apparently that’s all we were.
Shit.
I punched the name of the coffee shop she’d mentioned into the GPS, but then I drove off, ignoring the instructions. Sometimes it was good to just drive and think.
And after everything that had happened last night, there was a lot to think about.
Taking turns at random, I drove through the unfamiliar town. Macon wasn’t huge, but it was big enough that I could keep going without hitting the same intersection twice. That was the point. I wasn’t trying to get anywhere yet. Just trying to get my head on straight.
The problem was, no matter how many streets I turned down, I couldn’t outrun Tori’s words last night. She hadn’t yelled, hadn’t even raised her voice. Therefore, it took me too long to understand that she was as upset with me as I was with the entire situation.
That our views differed didn’t matter. I’d lost my cool. I called her disgusting. Tori. The sweetest woman I’d ever known. I hated how badly I’d handled it, and the shame bit deep. I was supposed to be the levelheaded one, the guy who never wavered or flipped out, and yet there I was, snapping at Tori like some insecure teenager.
It stung more than I cared to admit. Part of me knew I needed to back off, let her make her own decisions. But every instinct inside of me wanted to lock her away from all the things that might hurt her, especially Kyle.
Was she right? That I was letting her and Jayden off the hook and just blaming him? But there wasn’t even a hook to be let off of, because she hadn’t done anything wrong. It was her life. If she decided to sleep with the entire baseball team, that would be her decision. It just wasn’t the choice I wanted her to make.
At a red light, I wiped a hand over my face and breathed out a shaky sigh. Maybe Jayden had been right when he said I was putting her on a pedestal. But she was the most amazing woman I’d ever met, and I couldn’t understand why it was wrong to think that way. I liked her a lot more than any woman since Natalie, so wasn’t it natural for me to want her to like me back?
But maybe Jayden felt the same way. It was easier to think of him liking Tori than it was Kyle, so I’d use him in my thought experiment. If she liked both of us, what did we do then?
To me, that meant she needed to choose one of us, but of course I wanted her to choose me.
Shit. That was exactly what she meant last night when she said how I thought what I wanted was more important than what she wanted. And clearly, she didn’t want me. Or at least not only me.
With a sigh of resignation, I finally let the GPS have its way and followed its directions. The houses gave way to businesses, and I turned right near an old bookstore and passed a colorful mural of cherry blossoms.
It felt like Tori was slipping away from me, but I had no more claim over her than Jayden did. It was her life and her decision. Not mine.
Even though my mind was in turmoil about this issue, she had bigger things to worry about than her love life. We hadn’t talked a lot on the drive down because she was so upset, but it truly sounded like this Doug was at the very least emotionally abusive to her mother, along with majorly controlling and probably narcissistic. I couldn’t even imagine what it would do to Tori if her mom went through with it.
I pulled into the parking lot of the coffee house and shut off the engine. There was nothing to do but go in there and wait—my phone in my hand and ready the moment she needed me.