Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“When did you move back?” he asked, his eyes taking everything in. “You own this place?”
I smiled weakly and said, “I’ve been here a year and a half now. And yes, I own this place.”
I bought it from an owner that had cancer and was about to pass away at any moment. I guess his diseased soul recognized mine, because he’d welcomed me into his life, taught me the ropes, and had sold it to me for all of seventeen dollars. Seventeen dollars of which had been the only cash to my name at the time.
Being sick cost money, and let’s just say, I never had an overabundance of that.
“Are you a doctor?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
That’s when I laughed. The laugh sounded wrong, even to my own ears.
The frown on Aodhan’s face told me so.
“Morrigan isn’t a doctor. She’s a college dropout, right?” Theresa added oh so helpfully.
The shit.
I had no doubt she knew exactly what she was saying and making me appear unflattering was her intention.
Though, I sensed that was more because she could tell I was uncomfortable, and not because she was a complete bitch.
Theresa showed her love in weird ways. That’s why we worked so well.
“And the bank closes in like, ten minutes. You might want to go and get that done before they do.” Theresa handed me my bank zipper pouch stuffed with money.
I took it, nodded at her in thanks, and then said, “Thank you.”
With a small smile toward Aodhan, I headed out, and hoped that Folsom was still waiting on me, and the bank wouldn’t close early like they were known to do.
I was super-duper proud of myself, too. I didn’t once look back. Not even when my soul screamed at me to.
CHAPTER 2
Stay in drugs, eat your school, and don’t do vegetables. Or however that saying goes.
-Text from Aodhan to Bowie
AODHAN
I rubbed my chest where the ache for Morrigan St. Pete always resided. Sometimes it was more evident than others, but at that moment in time? It was there, and it was fierce, and it was likely going to stay that way for a while, based solely on the way she’d left without a backward glance in my direction.
Ever since the moment that we’d broken up, I’d wanted to take the moral high ground I’d been able to scrounge up back.
I wanted to pull her into my arms and hold on tight, never letting her go.
Yet, I’d persevered.
And after all this time, she’d dropped out of college? Where had she been? Why hadn’t she come back sooner?
“What the hell just happened?” I asked more to myself than the woman that was still serving customers, customers who were acting exactly the same, as if the owner of this establishment hadn’t just passed the fuck out in front of them.
If I hadn’t been following her, unable to help myself at the sight of her, she would’ve hit the floor so hard that her body could’ve broken.
Yet, I’d been there. I’d caught her. I’d missed the holy hell out of her.
Having her in my arms, even passed out, had been like a dream come true.
My phone beeped, signaling it was time for me to leave.
Today was my day to take Bowie to practice, and to get him there on time, that meant that I would have to grab my dinner now, or I’d be late.
But my heart was still physically aching, and I couldn’t make myself leave.
“She does this all the time,” the woman, Theresa, as Morr had called her, said. “And to be completely honest, I could tell she was severely uncomfortable being in your arms. She doesn’t like it when strangers touch her when she can’t do anything to stop them.”
That was a fuckin’ kick to the gut.
“I’m not a stranger,” I said.
She looked at me with raised eyebrows as she said, “Aren’t you?”
I opened my mouth to deny it, but quickly closed it. Because she was right. Morr was a stranger to me now. We didn’t know each other anymore like we used to. Had we, I would’ve known that her hair was changed, and that she couldn’t function like a normal adult because she had diseases.
Hell, when she first started showing signs and symptoms of the diseases when she was younger, her dad hadn’t cared. Her mother, who had been fresh out of prison for trying to kill herself, and accomplishing killing one of her unborn children in the process, hadn’t cared either.
The only person to worry about her had been me.
But she’d said that they’d gotten better.
She’d said that she…
I trailed off as I realized she’d given me what she thought I needed to hear. Because I’d been letting her go, and she knew I’d be guilted into keeping her if she informed me she wasn’t okay.
I would’ve never left her side.