Total pages in book: 178
Estimated words: 170884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
My palms pulsed and prickled from the sheer force of the cracks. The pain was a welcome change to what I’d been feeling the last couple days. It was nice to feel something other than numb.
Suddenly, his broken nose started to bleed again and I reared back once more, lip curling, eyes wide, but before I could hit him another time, he caught my wrist, gripping it tightly in his grasp, staring at me penetratingly. “I’m sorry.” He gently ran his thumb over my thumping pulse and softened his tone. “I’m sorry, angel.”
My eyes flashed and my voice quivered, not from sadness but from unsullied anger. “You do not apologize for this. Do you hear me?” My breaths started coming in short, rapid pants. “You say sorry for accidentally stepping on somebody’s toes.” Lifting my hand, I smacked him across the arm. Smack. “You say sorry for buying the wrong brand of shampoo.” Smack. A harder strike. My voice lifted an octave. “You say sorry for coming home late, Tony.” Smack. My eyes stung with the force of my tears as I shook all over. “You do not say sorry for not coming home at all.” Smack.
Tears fell from my lashes and trailed my cheeks, and I couldn’t even find the care to be embarrassed about the way my nose ran.
Twitch’s body tensed with every hit I landed, but all he did was back himself into the kitchen, his jaw steeled, his brows drawn as he took what I needed to dole out. He moved away, and I followed in an unconventional dance I didn’t even know the steps to.
Every strike I dealt felt like a punishment on myself.
This was not who I was. This was the person he made me. And I hated him for it.
The blows came faster and faster and he moved slowly, his body rigid and unyielding, allowing me to back him up against the kitchen counter. My shaking arms flailed in all directions, not caring where the knocks landed, only that they did.
A distressed whimper left me. “How could you do this?” Whack. The words were rough. “How could you do this to me?” Thump. My voice cracked. “To him?” Smack. My body shook as I wept, and my blows weakened as my grief drained me like a cell phone battery. “I loved you, you asshole.” Thwack. When his eyes closed and he swallowed hard, I held my arm up, ready to strike again, but held it midair. My voice was weak, and I focused on the rapid beating of my heart, taking in a slow, trembling breath. “You do not apologize for this.” I dropped my arm, feeling nothing. Absolutely nothing. “Get the fuck out of my house, Twitch.”
As I walked back to my room, my palms hot and throbbing, I dealt a parting blow. “You should’ve stayed dead.”
I didn’t hear him leave.
Actually, I wasn’t even sure he did.
My window rattling in the dead of night woke me with a jolt to the heart.
I knew he would come.
It continued to rattle as he fought with it.
Which was exactly why I bolted it shut.
It was Wednesday, two days after I’d last seen my son’s father, and when I walked A.J. outside toward the car, I saw him waiting, leaning against the wide monstrosity of a gum tree on the corner of the block.
My heart stuttered, but I feigned indifference.
What a thought. Indifference to Twitch.
Yeah, right.
I wasn’t a very good liar, not even to myself.
The moment our son spotted him, he took off running, and I just didn’t have it in me to cause my son distress this morning, so I said nothing. Watching Twitch smile that crooked smile I loved so dearly was almost too much. The fact that it was aimed at our son officially made it too much.
Years.
He willingly missed out on years of A.J., and that hurt.
I wasn’t stupid. I got it. He didn’t want us then. Probably spent the last few years fucking around and sowing his seed, and now that he was likely bored of that life, he thought he’d give being a daddy a crack and see how that went. And after A.J. was nice and attached to his daddy, which I could see he already was, Twitch would leave him and I would be left to pick up the trail of destruction he left.
I couldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let that happen.
I died a slow, painful death as I walked over to them, sliding on my sunglasses, and did my best to ignore the man I once thought was a god. “A.J., we need to go, honey. Don’t want to be late for school.”
A.J. looked up at me, beaming. “Look!” He pointed at the house across the street, on the opposite side of the suburban crossroads. “Daddy lives there.”