 by Natalie Bennett.jpg)
Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 128(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 128(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
His love is not kind.
His love is sick and obsessive, just like mine.
I never admitted how much I liked the vile things he did—not when escaping him was the only way for me to live.
Leaving destroyed both of us.
Now, a ghost from my past has begun reaching out from beyond the grave, creating a trail of corpses that threaten to reveal who and what I really am.
All I have to do to stop it is uphold my end of a broken promise.
See, a love like ours fed a bittersweet infatuation that ensured together we’d rot, but the day I left there was barely one body instead of two.
And someone wants me to keep my word.
Till death, do we never part.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
ROSELYNN
AFTER HIM
Every day greeted me with bittersweet melancholy. I had no one to blame for it but myself. Paranoia and a sense of betrayal had driven me to do something I could never take back.
This hellish existence was my aftermath.
Ruins of what I wrecked beyond repair. A vibrant part of who I used to be was crushed beneath the rubble and didn’t deserve to be found. She deserved to rot there like I should have been along with my broken vows. Instead, I was waking up every day going through the typical mundane motions, living a life I didn’t want to live.
There was no tomorrow, next week, or a month from now anymore. I couldn’t think that far ahead. I got through each day and saw it as an accomplishment.
Then night came creeping in with silence that allowed echoes of the past to remind me of what I’d done and all I had lost. I couldn’t win. Whether I was dreaming or awake all my thoughts went running home to him. It was hard not to get caught up in memories of the beautifully deranged mess we were. Today was proving to be worse than yesterday, but nothing could compare to how unbearable the first seven days were.
I lifted one of the front curtain panels and peered out the window, relieved to see that the rain had finally stopped. If it had kept up for much longer, I wouldn’t have had a choice but to swap the bucket in the living room with the kitchen trashcan to catch the leakage in the ceiling.
Rubbing my temples in an attempt to alleviate the onset of a headache, I wandered into the kitchen and grabbed my phone off the counter to check the hour. It was relatively early, just a quarter past eight.
Too soon for me to try and go to bed if I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night. I leaned against the counter and debated on what I should do. The vodka bottle I kept for evenings like this had been emptied before noon and I was down to my last swisher to roll. I should have picked up an extra shift. That at least would’ve put me past nine o'clock.
I contemplated what to do for another fifteen minutes and finally decided it was best for me to get out of the house before I went completely off the rails. I headed upstairs and perused my closet, choosing a little black dress from the small amount of non-comfort clothes I had left.
As I was in the middle of combing out my hair after a quick shower, my cell rang. I checked the ID and picked up the call, placing it on speaker so I could still use my hands.
“Did you make it there okay?”
“Yes. I just checked into my hotel. Now you can breathe, mom,” Molina teased.
“I should’ve sent you to voicemail.”
She laughed and something clinked together on her end of the call. “What are you doing? Besides missing me, of course.”
“I’m getting dressed.”
“What? Really? Where are you going?”
“Yes, really. The spot I mentioned the other day.” I turned to check the side profile of my hair, satisfied with what I saw. I’d carefully combed it so that the slightly accentuated waves held their shape and didn’t go straight.
“Molly?” I reached for my bag of glosses and checked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Are you going alone?”
I almost snorted. “Who else would I be going with?”
“I dunno, Lillian?”
“You mean Lauren? She’s barely old enough to buy a cigarette. Why would I take her somewhere like that?”
“I don’t think you should go alone.”
“Aren’t I always alone?”
She was quiet again for a moment. “Do you still feel alone, Rose?”
I frowned down at my phone. I understood what she was asking, but it wasn’t what I had been referring to. “I meant alone as in a literal sense because no one else is home.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, I just assumed. Are you sure you’re going to be, okay?”
“I think I should call you mom instead,” I quipped teasingly as I let my towel drop to the floor. “I can’t hold onto the hand of a ghost forever.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry, Rose. I wasn’t trying to upset you. I know it’s harder for you than it is for me.”
It was a good thing I wasn’t holding my phone, or I would have thrown it across the room. “My god, Molly. It’s not a competition. Why are we even talking about that when we should be talking about what you’ll be doing tomorrow.”
“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much. I know they’re supposed to be my family but I’m having trouble thinking of them like that. We had our own family until…” she trailed off and went silent.