Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Right, that’s it.
Jerking my glasses back on, I stalked to my back door and wrenched it open.
I had to see for myself.
I have to know she’s okay.
With a churning heart and balled fists, I cut through my manicured garden toward the three fence palings that’d come loose in my childhood and had slowly rotted ever since.
I’d sneaked through this secret entrance multiple times, going to visit Melody and steal a freshly baked cookie or two. I even hid at her place a few times when I’d been in my ‘I hate my siblings’ phase and couldn’t stand my two sisters. I’d begged Melody to adopt me so I never had to share a home with two bickering girls again.
A rusty nail snagged on my shirt, tearing a hole in it as I squeezed through.
My gaze tracked through the wild garden that always reminded me of a picture I’d seen of a Roman hospital back in the day. The land surrounding the hospital had been planted with every known medicinal plant, allowing doctors to pop into the flower beds and grab what was needed right off the stem.
At least the kitchen light was on, showing bunches of drying herbs and pretty flower magnets on the oversized industrial fridge.
This house was as familiar to me as my own, yet now it felt like it’d been touched by evil.
If I’d done a better job of talking to Sailor over the years, I could’ve offered her to stay at mine for a while. She could’ve been close to everything she loved and able to make her concoctions for the market but have space from the actual place where he tried to kill her.
Melody’s probably cursing me right about now.
Pushing my way through the final paling, I sucked in a breath and took a step toward the house. Then froze as my cell phone erupted with an obnoxiously shrill ring tone that I heard even in the deepest of sleeps.
Fuck.
Slipping the phone from my pocket, I cut off the racket and did my best to swallow my temper. “Dr North speaking.”
“Dr North? I’m so sorry to do this after your already long day, but are you able to come back in? There’s been a minibus versus an overloaded truck, and we need all hands on deck.”
My shoulders slouched as I spotted Sailor sitting on the couch, facing away from me. Her hair was just as tangled as before. The TV wasn’t on. The fact she sat there, all alone staring at nothing, ripped the knots in my guts into smithereens.
I couldn’t tell if my concern came from the physician who’d seen her in the ER or as a not-friend-but-childhood-something.
Either way, I couldn’t leave her like that, but…I had no choice.
Not my place, remember?
Exhaling hard, I squeezed back through the fence and headed toward my car. “Sure, I’ll be right there.”
* 9 *
Sailor
Walls Are Closing
THREE MORE DAYS PASSED AND THE WORLD kept closing in around me.
I hated that I couldn’t stop it.
I hated that I hated myself for letting it happen. I knew this wasn’t me. I knew this fear didn’t belong to me. I knew that I was safe and had a good life and was lucky to be me and nothing should shake that foundation, yet…it was shaken.
No matter how many pep talks I gave myself, I couldn’t seem to stop the clotting cloud sticking to my thoughts or the creeping depression each time I looked in the mirror and watched my bruises fade from purple-black to brown-green.
My throat finally started to heal, and I could whisper without too much pain. Lily kept popping by unannounced between her open houses and client appointments, which meant I walked around in a perpetual state of false cheer, just in case she surprised me, when all I wanted to do was sob in the corner.
A wise part of myself knew I needed to feel what I was feeling in order to free these blocked emotions inside me. I had to be kind to myself and acknowledge that right now, I was feeling hurt and weak and small, and the sooner I allowed myself to feel it, the sooner I could move on.
But the moment I tried to let myself sink into the grief of losing something I couldn’t even name, another wall would shoot up and fortify the barrier I’d already put in place. It came with thoughts like ‘You’re being silly, you’re fine.’ ‘Stop moping, you’re alive.’ ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself, so many others are worse off.’
And so, I stayed on that awful carousel of knowing I needed to grieve, all while being far too stubborn to think I needed to grieve anything.
The morning my voice came back just enough to speak to someone without choking, I called the police number that’d been assigned to my case. I listened as the officer told me every shred of information I wanted. Milton hadn’t met bail and was currently in a prison a few states over awaiting trial. His family hadn’t helped him, and none of his friends had stepped up, revealing by their actions exactly the type of person he was.