Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“You’re the love of my life too, asshole,” I whispered.
With that, I went out the door.
I headed right back to the waiting room, and with everyone’s eyes on me, evaluating, curious, concerned, I announced, “He’s good. In and out of sleep. Whoever’s up next can go on in.”
With that, I went right to the bag I’d left in my seat.
And of course, the Angels were suddenly there, crowding me.
All of them.
Raye, Jess, Harlow, Willow, Shanti, Joey and Gemma.
I loved them. They were the best bitches a bitch could ask for.
But…
God.
I had to get out of here.
“You okay?” Raye asked.
“Did he say something?” Jessie asked.
“You don’t look too good,” Harlow noted, worry unhidden in her tone.
“Gotta bounce,” I stated, shouldering the strap on my bag and pushing through them.
“You gotta bounce?” Shanti queried, her words sharp with shock.
Joey followed me. “What happened?”
“Need space,” I told her.
“What’d he say?” Gemma, also following me (they all were), asked quietly.
“Space,” I bit, quickening my step.
I felt some of them do the same, but heard Raye advise, “Leave her.”
“But—” Willow began.
“Trust me. Leave her,” Raye said.
I started jogging, and they fell away.
I got out to my car.
I navigated a parking lot whose designers should be incarcerated for creating such a maze people had to navigate, those people being folks who needed hospitals for themselves or loved ones, and as such, they were in no state to have to maneuver said maze.
And I had no idea why, because it sure wasn’t my heart or my head that made the decision, but as I drove, I ended up sitting in my car at the curb outside my sister Dream’s house.
Dream and I did not get along (marked understatement). Though, recently, there’d been a thawing. Just not much of one.
Why I was there rather than going to my mom, I did not know.
Why I was there rather than heading straight to the grocery store, buying a gallon of Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream and a jar of Biscoff cookie butter, emptying both into a mixing bowl, cueing up Once, and eating the whole thing, I did not know.
But there I was.
“Fuck it,” I clipped, pushed out of my Prius and trooped up to her door.
I knocked.
Dream opened the door with a baby on her hip.
The baby was not one of hers.
Seeing as she had three kids from three different men, and three jobs to take care of them, she’d managed to create a fifty-fifty custody gig with all of her baby daddies so her kids were with their dads every other week. And this was that week.
But she had a daycare thing going in her pad, taking in two other kids. So there were always kids.
After she opened the door, I noticed what I’d been noticing lately with growing alarm.
She was losing weight, and she looked beat down.
This happened when you had three jobs (her daycare, weekend waitress work at The Surf Club, where I also worked, and her Etsy store, which had taken off), three kids, and you’d used up all your family and friends (another long story), so you didn’t have a lot of help.
It was time for me to ask her about this regardless of the fact that, even if I genuinely cared about her state of being, I knew she’d be bitchy or spiteful or throw my concern in my face some other way.
I didn’t ask her about this.
I announced, “Knox was shot.”
My sister’s head jerked back.
I burst into tears on her doorstep.
For a second, I just stood there crying while she stared at me.
As expected.
We’d never been close. This deteriorated the last few years.
And I guessed now we were just…siblings.
But suddenly, I was pulled inside.
She closed the door.
She put the baby in a playpen.
She turned to me.
I kept crying but did it braced for her to say something ugly.
She didn’t.
She pulled me in her arms.
And she hugged me.
Hard.
Thirty Minutes Earlier…
In Room Three West
Knox Chambers heard the door snick shut.
He opened his eyes.
He saw ceiling.
Physically, he felt pretty much nothing.
Mentally, he felt hazy and out of it.
Even so…
His lips curled up in a smile.
TWO
A WIN WAS A WIN
“Get up. I have to go to work, and you have to stop hiding.”
Hearing these words through sleep, I opened my eyes and saw my sister bending over the playpen with some kind of organic spritz cleaner in one hand and a microfiber cloth in the other.
I was on her couch, where I’d slept after bawling, then letting the whole story leak out, then Dream’s clients came to get their kids while I texted the only text I sent (or read), one to Raye asking her to look after my French bulldog, Jacques.
After that, Dream force-fed me (not quite, but I wasn’t hungry, and she did get super bossy in making me eat) some vegan white chili (how could vegans eat that “cheese” she’d sprinkled on top—it was awful, though the rest of it was rather tasty). She’d then DoorDashed a dozen gluten free, vegan cupcakes.