Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
I just wish it would. I wish I could have everything together, including my mom in a place that's good for her, and I wish I could wake up every day without all this painful guilt.
“She would have left him in the beginning if it wasn't for me.” My aunt's eyebrows go up a little at my words. “You and I both know that.”
My aunt reaches across the table and takes my hand in hers. Her fingers are warm from the mug of tea, and she gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “Renee, you know this isn't your fault, right?”
I don't answer her. Cause the first time she left him I begged her to go back home. I was a kid. I didn’t know any better and I told her it was true love. It is my fault. At least a piece of it. And I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never believe in true love again.
Griffin
When I pull up to the entrance of the drive-in movie, the sign has the title of the movie and the genre in all caps below it. HORROR, it says.
I look at Renee with a serious expression. She's sitting in the passenger seat of my car, leaning forward a few inches to read the title of the movie. There are pillows and blankets in the back along with popcorn from the gas station and boxes of chocolate covered peanuts that she told me a while ago were her favorites.
“Oooh, a scary one?” Renee asks, her eyebrows raised. She looks beautiful tonight. Red is her color. Her coat is already off and thrown in the back seat, and her dark red sweater dress nearly matches the colors of her lips. “Horror for our first fake date,” she says comically.
“Are you brave enough for it?” I say back and then add, “It was our only option, unfortunately.” We were supposed to go out yesterday but something came up for her. On Sundays there’s only one movie that plays so…here we are. I’m happy with it though, if she is.
Her smile falters, and she looks down at the center console. “I'm brave enough for anything,” she says, but she doesn't sound like she believes it. Or like her mind went elsewhere.
I want to ask her if everything's okay, but I bite my tongue because I’ve already asked once. She was so quiet on the drive over, and the tone of her voice makes me think there's something going on. It's like that day in the bar when she came in looking sad, and I want to know what it is so I can fix it.
My hands twist on the steering wheel and I stay quiet. I have the feeling Renee would think that wasn't a pretend-date thing to talk about, though, and trying to start that conversation might push her away. Then we'd be back to one-word answers over text.
When I glance back over at her, she’s smiling and I’ll take that. The last thing I want is to mess this up with her. So I drive ahead with a forced smile and pray this movie is good, or if it isn’t, we can cuddle up and get these windows to fog.
There are ten or so other cars at the movie tonight. I pull into the lot and find a spot that has a decent view of the screen without being too close to anybody else. We don't need them looking in the windows on our “pretend date.” In this spot, we're mostly behind the other cars, too, so nobody will see us, really.
Renee rolls down her window just enough to position the speaker and when she's done, she glances over at me.
I give her a serious look. “I have to ask you something.”
“What?” she asks, obviously worried. My heart squeezes. I'm just trying to lighten the mood and make her feel less down, and I'm screwing it up already.
“Do you like to have a huge bucket of popcorn at the drive-in? You can say no, but I didn't want to assume you were a popcorn person and make an ass of myself.”
Renee laughs, and that makes my heart feel a hell of a lot lighter. Her eyes crinkle and she covers her mouth, then drops her hand back to her lap.
“I am a popcorn person, actually,” she says. “What about you?”
“I feel like it should be illegal not to have popcorn at the drive-in.”
“With extra butter?” she asks.
“Always,” I say with more seriousness that forces her to laugh. That’s better. That sweet sound eases the tension.
“Let me grab the bag from the back.” I hustle to the trunk and immediately check the two bags of popcorn. It’s unreal that I should feel this much relief that one of the bags says “extra butter,” but then again being with this woman does something to me and she knows it.