Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 131209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
My mother gasped, and my father’s mouth parted.
I wiped away my tears for the first time since I walked through the door. “Why? Please… tell me… why do you do this to her? How can you use her the way you do? She sits here and waits for you! How can you hurt her that way? Are you that fucking cold?” I openly sobbed. My chest burned with the vigor of my words.
“I’m not going to lie to you. You’re much too old to be told anything, but the truth. I should have told you years ago, but I didn’t, and I will have to live with that regret. I love you. You. Your mother. Your sisters. Are my whole world. Do you understand me? I would die for any of you. I love your mother she’s the reason I wake up every morning.”
I scuffed. “You have a shitty way of showing it.”
He nodded. “You’re right. But it doesn’t make it any less true. I’m not saying what I do is right. I’m well aware that it is wrong. However, I have never lied to her. Since day one I have been honest, and what we approve of in our marriage is our business, Brooklyn. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes—”
“No,” Mom interrupted, placing her hands on my shoulders. “It doesn’t. We live our lives according to the way we see fit. I’m sorry we don’t have better answers for you. I wish I could take away your confusion and pain. The only thing we have to give, is that we love each other.”
I backed away from her, from both of them. “I’m just like you. Did you know that, Daddy?” I mocked, catching myself on the kitchen island. “I hurt the people I love. I make them bleed for me, and take their loyalty and devotion. I take their hearts. And then I stomp all over them. I hate myself.”
“Baby…” Mom whispered, in a heartening voice.
“I hurt him. I hurt him so fucking bad. I didn’t mean to. I swear I didn’t. I don’t know how it got so out of hand. I love him. I love him so fucking much that it hurts to live without him. What am I supposed to do now? How do I breathe without him? How do I go back to living in a world where I was alone?”
“You’re not alone. I love you, we love you,” Dad interjected, creeping closer to me.
I felt like I was standing in quicksand, and it was taking me under, along with anyone who was with me. Their hands felt torrid and crude, when they tried to touch me.
To comfort me.
To love me.
I shoved them away as hard as I could, but it didn’t faze them. They didn’t move an inch when I wanted them to move a mile. They fought me, until my legs gave out, and my mind shut down. I took them down with me, all together in a pile of penitence. When I couldn’t fight them any longer because they wouldn’t allow me to push them away; I lay my head in my mothers lap, and my body was displayed over my father. She rubbed my head and he wrapped his arms around me.
I bawled like a newborn baby.
I cried an ocean of tears.
I drowned among the sobs.
They held onto me the entire time. Never letting go. Until I believed that I wasn’t alone. It gave me hope in a moment of nothing, but despair. It gave us repentance.
Love is blind.
Love is selfish.
Love makes us stupid.
L-O-V-E, a four-letter word that means something different to everyone.
All sides of love.
The different shades and colors.
I would never get the answers to the questions that I sought.
It is what it is…
But for the first time my mind was at peace. I surrendered to the unknown possibilities of the future.
With my family.
With VIP.
And especially with Devon.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
<>D<>
Everyone says love hurts, but you never imagined what it was going to feel like, until it was too late. I wanted to believe in something so badly that it ended up destroying both of us. I couldn’t save her, as much as she couldn’t save me. Love is a vicious cycle, an endless stream of emotions and feelings that are exhausting, and before you knew it… it’s ended. And you had no idea where it even began.
Everything blended together in a huge cluster of what ifs and maybe somedays.
I walked out of Madam’s condo, and ran. I ran with nowhere in particular to go. I found myself on the beach, alone. My mind was overwhelmed. I sat there, and watched the waves of the water gravitating its way onto the shoreline. All the beautiful sandcastles that people may have spent hours building, gone with one swift of a wave. Taking down everything in its path.