Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
I had never in my life seen in person someone literally go white. I was pale and got even more pale during the winter, but I had nothing on her then. Not even close.
Then something else slid over her face. Fear. Panic.
Did she remember what she’d said?
Well, I wasn’t going to risk that she didn’t know what I had carried around word for word for the last ten years. “I don’t know if you remember, but you told me—”
She took a step back, bumping into the washbasin in a way that seemed like she didn’t even feel that she had. “Oh shit,” she whispered under her breath so low I barely heard it. “I’m sorry.”
She was already apologizing before I could even remind her of what she’d done? I’d been waiting for this shit for years. “Do you remember what you said to me?” I asked her as her hands went to the edge of the counter, like she was trying to hold herself up.
“I—I—shit. Shit,” the woman stuttered. “I’m sorry, I forgot. I… I forgot. I meant to only do it for a little while…. For a couple months, but I for-forgot until now…. Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” she echoed, staring at me with wide, fearful eyes that made zero sense.
What the fuck was she talking about?
“You only meant to do what for a little bit?” Did she have me confused with someone else? Had she been ugly to another person in Zac’s life? One of his cousins, maybe?
But she didn’t respond, because she was too busy chanting, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” under her breath as she lifted her hands to her face… and then dropped them suddenly.
Drama queen much? I’d had this planned for years. I’d lain in bed and worked out my speech a long time ago, ready for just this opportunity, and now she was trying to turn it around and make it about her? Nuh-uh.
“You said things to me. Do you remember? You told me I was—”
The pretty woman shook her head, face still paler than pale, and took a step forward. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did. I shouldn’t have come—”
My mouth ran off before I could stop it. “Yeah, you should be. You were mean. I had just been a kid and you—”
She put up a hand, like to try and keep me away from getting too close to her. “He loved you so much, and I was just jealous, and I’m so sorry—”
“I don’t want your apology. You hurt me. I let one of my favorite people in the world go for ten years because of what you said.”
If I’d thought she looked scared before, her features went straight terrified after my last comment.
“Oh God,” she muttered before turning around, nearly stumbling as she headed straight for the door, saying over her shoulder, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She was out of there, leaving her mask behind.
And goddamn it, my hands were dirty—maybe I could touch her face with my dirty hands as payback—but I went after her, stopping to squirt some hand sanitizer because I wasn’t a total monster…. but confused by the fact she looked so sick and scared. Because something told me that wasn’t the reaction of someone who felt bad for how she’d behaved in her twenties. It was deeper than that. Somewhere in my heart, I knew it.
And that was why I went after her through the door.
And that was why I pretty much instantly stopped on the other side.
Because she’d bumped into Zac, and her whole body was shaking and her mouth was running off a long line of words without a break, without a breath, without the blink of an eye.
“I’msosorryIforgotIonlymeanttodoitforalittlewhilebutthenyoubrokeupwithmeaweeklaterandIwasmadanddidn’tcareandIfiguredyouwouldnoticeandthenyou’dfixitandI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry.”
I wasn’t even sure if Zac recognized her from the what-the-fuck expression on his face as she blew through her apology.
But the man I didn’t recognize who had moved to stand beside Zac must have understood enough because he set a hand on her shoulder and said, “Baby, what are you talking about?”
Baby? Her boyfriend? Husband?
Actually… he did look a little familiar.
She swooned. She gulped. She looked like she wanted to fucking run but physically couldn’t because she was shaking so bad.
“Jessica, what did you do? What did you think he would fix?” the tall, super strapping man asked the woman who had kicked me as a teenager with her words.
Zac’s baby blue gaze met mine in confusion, and I knew I had to tell him. What she’d said, what she’d done, and what I had done.
Grown apart. Stopped messaging him. Totally retreated.
I had given up on him in a way.
Just as I opened my mouth to tell him, Jessica looked at me, then to Zac’s confused face, and back to me. And she exhaled three words that made no sense. “I was jealous.”