Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
This is fucking, pure and simple.
I should probably hate myself for being the catalyst for getting us to this point. I should be pissed at myself for coming here tonight when I knew what kind of state he was in. But I can’t bring myself to do anything but savor every second of this moment I shouldn’t have stolen.
And the reality of what I’d do for him is clear—anything.
I’d do anything for this man.
I love you, my heart cries.
I want to take away his pain.
I want to tell him that he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I want to tell him that I’d never ask him to choose his daughter over me and that I’m not mad he asked me to bring that letter to the police station that day.
I want to tell him a million things, but I know he’s not ready for that. I can see it in his eyes and feel it in the desperate way he moves.
I don’t stop kissing him when he pushes us both over the edge and comes deep inside me. And I don’t stop kissing him when he lies down on the couch and pulls my body over his.
I only stop kissing him when his eyes fall closed and his breaths grow slower with sleep, then I dress myself and steal away into the night just as I came.
Without invitation, without answers, without any sense of closure.
I love Bennett Bishop. But he’s still not ready to love me.
Bennett
My head throbs and my hands shake as I wake up sharply, sitting up on the sofa in my studio. I don’t know when I came in here last night or why, but the stack of paintings piled in the center of the space and the box of spilled matches beside it give me a sense that I had some big plans for an actual bonfire.
Thank God I didn’t follow through.
Every muscle inside my body hurts as I get up, head out of the studio, and back into the house. But when I step inside, I’m overwhelmed by the silence. The morning birds chirp outside my window, but other than them, the world is painfully, soundlessly bleak.
There’s no noise from my sister in the kitchen, no giggles from Summer as she talks to Charlie in her room, and no soft sighs from a woman in my bed.
I’m alone for another day.
I sink my head into my hands and beg for a sign. A direction to go, a solution to carry out, a vision to follow. Practically, I know I can’t have Summer back, but every other part of me is hoping for some kind of miracle.
Something that makes me feel like I can breathe again. Something to let me know that Summer is all right.
Norah.
It’s a barely there whisper in the back of my mind and the smell of her perfume on my shirt, so faint that I have no trouble ignoring it.
Memories of her being in my studio last night start to flit around inside my head, but I can’t distinguish fantasy from reality.
Was she here last night? Or is it nothing more than another night of tortured dreams?
I head into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and choose the only real option I have—to stop thinking about it at all.
She’s better off without me.
Saturday, September 25th
Norah
Last night was the first night in ten nights that Clay hasn’t called me to come pick up Bennett from the bar, which means it’s the first night in ten nights I haven’t heard him tell me he loves me.
While I’m hopeful this means he’s on the way out of his grief-filled stupor and headed toward finding a way to move on, I have to admit, I’m still going to miss the sound of his drunken confessions.
And since he’s still leaving my texts and calls unanswered, I have no idea if he remembers me coming to his studio that one night. I probably should regret doing that, but I don’t. I don’t regret anything when it comes to Bennett.
Finished walking, I set out the pink blanket I brought with care, making sure I don’t mess up the flowers on either side of Summer’s headstone. Once the blanket is in place, I lie down on my back, just to the side of the center, adjust the pink sunglasses on my face, and imagine for the fifth time in the last week that Summer is lying next to me.
As I look up at the sky, the sun moves behind a small cloud, and its rays shoot out from the sides in what looks like a halo. I smile, tears stinging my nose at the overwhelming sense that this is divine timing.
“Hey, Sum,” I greet softly, rubbing at the empty blanket next to me with a mindless hand. “I’ve got good news about your dad. I think, maybe, he’s getting it together.”