Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
He shakes his head, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Because I’m putting myself in danger. It makes me feel alive.”
My lips part to let out a gasp, but nothing escapes because the shock is too great.
Putting himself in danger? As in … the thought of getting killed turns him on?
The car slips on the streets as we make our way downtown toward a tall skyscraper. But when it finally comes to a stop, I feel like I’ve been tumbled through a washer because my hair is definitely sticking to my sweaty body.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
He gets out and taps on the hood. “We’re here.”
He walks toward a building and looks at me over his shoulder as though he’s waiting for me to follow him, so I open the door and hop out too.
The building looks intimidating from up close. I wonder what’s inside.
“C’mon,” he says, opening the door.
Downstairs is a lobby, and a woman at the front desk greets him. “Hello, Mr. Preston. Back for the usual check-in with—”
“Tell the staff to leave. I need twenty minutes undisturbed,” he interjects, waltzing to the elevator.
Undisturbed … with who?
I get inside too even though his penetrative stare makes me feel anything but comfortable while stuck together in an elevator. He pulls out a very peculiar key card and holds it in front of a pad, then presses a button. The doors close, and the silence is overwhelming as we go up and up and up, seemingly unending. And all I can do is listen to his breathing grow more rapid with every level we pass, as though he’s mentally preparing himself for what’s to come.
“What’s up there?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer until the elevator comes to a stop.
He clears his throat. “You asked me why I didn’t want my father dating your mother. I’ll show you.”
There’s a long hallway up ahead filled with doors, each leading to a numbered room, and I follow him inside.
“What is this place?”
“One of my father’s many properties,” he says. “He rents out the rooms. Except this floor.”
“What’s on this floor?” I ask, gulping when he glances at me over his shoulder without answering my question.
He stops in front of a door at the end of the hallway and holds the key card in front of another pad. Something beeps, and a lock springs loose. He pushes down the handle and heads inside.
It’s a two-part home, one bathroom, one bedroom, and a small kitchen barely large enough to make a coffee or a snack. To my right is a round beige leather chair, and to my left, a small table with two seats. But what draws in my eyes is the big bed in the middle of the room and all the machinery beside it beeping and churning away.
In the bed lies a woman with skin so pale it nearly turns translucent, her thin, brittle hair lying on top of her shoulders as her hands rest beside her lifeless body. Tubes go in her veins, and another one is connected to her mouth, pushing oxygen in and out to her lungs.
“Who … who is that?” I mutter.
My breathing falters as Caleb sits on the bed and grabs her hand. “My mom.”
CALEB
I squeeze my mom’s hand tightly even though it’s cold to the touch. Some part of me feels like maybe if I squeeze hard enough, she might feel it.
I stare at her lifeless body in the bed. Every day, her skin sheds more and more, like the bark on a tree flaking off as it’s slowly deprived of nutrients. A shell of a once magnificent tree that crowned the forest and gave so much to so many.
A tear wells up in my eyes, but I push it away.
I’ve already given up on the idea that she’ll ever remember me.
That time has long since passed.
All that remains now is a wake. Day in, day out. Until she slowly withers away.
I lift my head and look at the girl standing in the door opening. The girl who forced her way into my life … the girl who invaded every corner of my mind until there was no escaping her.
Her eyes are filled with so much compassion it’s sickening, and it makes me want to scream.
But that would only push her further away from me.
And the thought of losing her too would drive me insane.
All this time, I’ve been hanging on by a thread.
And her seeing my world for what it truly is … will unravel me.
Crystal
I stare at him, heart struck with so many emotions I can’t utter a single syllable.
Tears well up in my eyes, but I push them away.
It wouldn’t be right to cry, but damn, it has never been harder to keep them at bay.
“This is why I didn’t want your mother to be with my dad,” he says, his voice fluctuating in tone from all the pent-up emotions. “Somewhere in there, inside that fainting husk, is a living, breathing human being.” He pauses, the weight of his emotions sinking into each word like a stone in the pond of my soul, leaving ripples in its wake. “Waiting for her family that no longer exists.”