Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
I’m the one who led Tyler to his death.
“You didn’t have to go.” His voice is sincere, but soft and full of sympathy.
“Well I’m coming back now,” I tell him.
“Does she know?” he asks me and I answer him with, “I shouldn’t have told her.”
“She knows you followed her? Is she going to press charges?” he asks and I huff a humorless laugh and then stare at the ceiling fan that’s perfectly still.
“I don’t think so,” I say and it’s only then that question becomes a possibility. I’ve only been thinking about what I can do to make her forgive me.
“She has to forgive me,” I tell him with words stronger than I feel.
“She doesn’t have to do anything,” Carter answers me and the silence stretches as my disdain for him grows.
“What did she say?” he asks me just as I’m ready to hang up.
“That she hates me.” It doesn’t hurt me to say the words today like they hurt me yesterday. There’s hope, only a small piece, but it’s there. “She didn’t mean it,” I tell him.
“Did you do anything else?” Carter asks me with a tone that’s cautious, like he already knows.
“I’ve done lots of things, brother.”
“With her. With Addison.” My gaze wanders to my shoes by the bed and I bend down to put them on and lace them while I tell him, “I tried to stay away from her, but she sought me out … before she knew.”
“Did she fuck you?” he asks me and it strikes me as if he’s said it backward.
“I fucked her, yes.” The irritation gives me strength and I stare at the pile of shit next to the door that I’ll take with me back home and nearly leave it behind. It’s all meaningless.
“Is she …” Carter hesitates to ask.
“She’s mine.” The words leave me quickly, whipping out as if they’re meant to lash him, hating how he questions it. She’s always been mine.
I almost tell him that she’ll forgive me, but the doubt in me stops the words on the tip of my tongue.
“I’m coming home. I’ve been running away for a long time.”
“If you bring her, tell me so I can tell the others.”
“Why tell them?” Although I don’t give a shit what they think, I know Addison will.
“She was like a sister to us, Daniel. She didn’t just leave Tyler, she left all of us.”
She didn’t just leave us once. She left us twice.
When I heard her break up with Tyler in the kitchen, I could hear every word. I stood by the window, watching her leave.
I can’t let her leave a third time. I can’t let her go.
Before I can stop myself, I speak into the phone, “I’ll let you know.”
Staring at the closed door to this rented house, I can see Addison so clearly all those years ago. Driving away and I never bothered to stop her or tell her how she wasn’t allowed to leave.
She could never leave.
She was meant to be there.
Not with Tyler, but with me.
Maybe if I had bothered to tell either of them that, Tyler would still be here and none of this would have happened.
CHAPTER 25
Addison
This coldness won’t go away.
It follows me everywhere. Even burying myself under the blankets doesn’t take the chill away.
I can’t sleep. I can only wait for updates from Daniel. He texted me all night. He’s really leaving.
It all feels so final and I have no time to process anything. There’s a heaviness in my chest and a soreness in my lungs that I’m so painfully aware of. They won’t leave me alone.
Another message, another plea from him.
Please meet me, he begs. I can’t lose you again.
Looking at his message stirs up so much emotion. I don’t want to lose him. That’s the worst part of all of this. It’s the fact that I don’t want to be alone and without him again.
But how can you forgive someone for watching you suffer when they knew they could save you?
I’ll wait outside. I’m on my way and I’ll wait for you, but I can’t wait long. Please Addison.
The seconds tick by as I stare at his message.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
It’s early in the morning; the sun is still rising. A new day.
I can tell him goodbye. Just one last kiss. A kiss for the love we had. The love we shared for another too. A final goodbye that I should have had years ago.
I can pretend that’s what this will be, but I already feel myself clinging to him.
Some people you’re meant to say goodbye to, and others you aren’t.
I don’t text him back. Instead I head to the bathroom. I look exactly how I feel, which is fucking awful. I half question getting myself somewhat put together to see him.
But I don’t want him to remember me like this if it really is the last time I’ll see him.