Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“Much,” she murmurs back. After a while, she sighs, the sound heavy, like it’s been building up inside her.
“Do you want to talk about what happened with your brother earlier? And your sister?”
She shakes her head. Then she nods. In a soft voice, she explains how Harrison guilt-tripped her at the football game and how when she called her sister afterward, it only resulted in another helping of guilt.
“It’s just so hard with Harrison. When I started this whole ancestry search, I thought it would be easier. That if I found a relative, it would be like some missing piece would just snap into place. I thought that we’d be close or that he’d understand me because he’s…well, family. But it’s awkward. We don’t even know each other, and sometimes I feel like I’m making it worse, like I’m doing something wrong.”
“From what you’ve told me, he hasn’t exactly been easy to talk to.”
She nods, a frown pulling at her mouth. “Yeah, he’s a lot. He has all this bitterness about our different upbringings, and it’s like I can never say the right thing around him. I constantly feel like I’m supposed to apologize for having a good life.”
When she stops talking, pressing her lips together, I think she’s done, but then she makes an irritated sound and keeps going.
“And it’s not just Harrison either. I felt like that with my ex too, like if I messed up, I’d lose him. I kept trying to be the perfect girlfriend for Mitch, but eventually I couldn’t do it anymore. It was so exhausting, trying to preserve his fragile ego and make him happy every second of the day.”
“That guy is such a dick,” I grumble.
“Yup. And even when I was perfect, he’d still find something wrong,” she says, bitterness creeping into her voice. “It got to the point where even just being myself felt like a risk. Like if I let my guard down, everything would fall apart.”
A sharp stab of anger pokes at my gut. Not at her but at anyone who’d make her feel that way. “You know that’s all on him, right? None of that is on you. Those were Macho Mitch’s bullshit issues, not yours.”
She looks up at me, her eyes a little shiny. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”
“Well, it should,” I say. “Because if he couldn’t handle you—really handle you, the real you—that’s his problem. He missed out.”
“You really think that?”
“I know that. You shouldn’t have to change to keep anyone around. That’s not love. That’s…control.”
She goes quiet, thinking. Above us, the sky stretches out like an endless black sea, dotted with stars too distant to reach but close enough to fill the air between us.
Charlie rests her head against my shoulder and turns the tables on me. “What about you? What was your ex like?”
I keep my answer vague. “She was…I don’t know. We were just kids, you know? Figuring out what we wanted, who we were.” I search for the right words, but everything feels off, like I’m trying to explain a dream. How do you even explain someone who, at one point, felt like your whole life? “It was good until it wasn’t.”
“Did she end it or did you?”
“She’s the one who left.”
Charlie nods. “Did she cheat?”
I nod back.
“Do you two ever talk?”
“No.” I shake my head, swallowing back the instinct to shut this down, but my next words slip out before I can stop them. “But I, uh, used to write to her. Letters. Maybe for about a year afterward.” I chuckle under my breath, feeling like an idiot for admitting this. “I never sent them, though.”
“So why write them?”
I shrug, giving a small, self-deprecating smile. “I guess it was my way of putting things to rest, even if she never read them. I told her things I couldn’t say before, things I never figured out until later.”
Charlie hesitates again. “Do you think she’s happier without you?”
The question hits me square in the chest.
I don’t answer right away. I take a deep breath, and for a second, the cold feels sharper.
“Yes,” I finally say. “Yeah, I think she is.”
“And are you happier without her?”
A lump fills my throat. “That’s a tough one to answer. I’m not the same person I was back then. My idea of happiness is different now.”
She looks at me, really looks at me, her eyes containing a warmth that makes the frigid night bearable. “I’m glad you’re here right now,” she says quietly. “With me.”
I hold her gaze, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. “Me too.”
We fall silent, the weight of the past hanging between us like smoke that refuses to clear. Yet I feel lighter somehow, after letting her see a piece of me I don’t usually show. The realization causes emotion to constrict my chest and throat, making it hard to breathe again.