Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 52663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“Leave with me,” he breathes. “Let’s get out of here and start over. Somewhere no one knows our names. Somewhere we don’t have to lie.”
Tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them.
He kisses them away like he’s trying to erase the decision already forming in my chest.
“Please…” he murmurs again. “Screw both of them. Their love isn’t ours. You know that, Emily. You feel it—you know.”
I shake my head—not out of defiance, but exhaustion. “I don’t want to hurt my mom.”
“She’s happy to hurt you.”
“She’s still my mom.”
I close my eyes for a beat, but his voice drags me back.
“You’re more loyal to her than she is to you,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I open my eyes and stare at him, eyes shining with more than just grief. I push gently against his chest, but he kisses me again—this time with a tremble in his mouth like something inside him is splintering.
“I don’t hate her the way you hate your dad,” I whisper. “Then again, I’m not sure you hate him enough to ruin what’s left of your relationship over me. Do you?”
“I would ruin everything in my life just to be with you, Emily,” he whispers. “You’re the only genuine person I’ve ever met…”
Instead, he unties the knot of my robe—not roughly this time, but like it means something. Like every inch of me is sacred and vanishing at once. His hands move as though he’s memorizing me one last time. His mouth follows, slow and reverent, like he’s writing apologies across my skin in every place he’s ever made a promise.
We don’t speak.
We just fall into each other, into the grass, into the kind of silence that holds more pain than words ever could.
We make love like people trying to forget the future. Like we can still outrun it if we move fast enough, breathe hard enough, pretend long enough.
I kiss him like I want to disappear into him. Like if I hold on tight enough, nothing else can reach us.
We don’t say goodbye.
We just let our bodies lie for a little while, pretending this was ever going to be enough.
Eventually, Cole moves first.
He pulls his shirt back on without meeting my eyes, then helps me to my feet with a gentleness that only makes it harder to stand. His hands linger at my waist like he doesn’t trust himself to let go.
Neither of us says anything as he walks me back to the ladder.
He steadies it with one hand while I climb, the iron slick beneath my feet, the night colder than it was before.
At the top, I pause.
My fingers tighten around the railing. I almost call his name. Almost tell him to wait.
But I already made my choice the second I said nothing.
I turn to look back.
But he’s already gone.
27
COLE
In the morning, I meander through the motions in third person; it’s the only way I can force myself through this farce of a wedding.
I put on the suit, but it feels like I’m dressing someone else. I smile in photos I won’t keep, stand next to people I wouldn’t miss. None of this belongs to me—not the day, not the name, not her.
The tailor fawns over the stitching, marvels at how perfect “the Dawson family” will look in magazines. I tune him out. I nod when I’m supposed to. I stand where I’m told.
Per my father’s request, I pose with the groomsmen and best man, and then—just to drive the point home—with my parole officer who came incognito as “Mr. Dawson’s Number One Stalker Fan.”
Everyone laughed.
Except me.
As the ceremony unfolds, I look at the love of my life standing across from him. I study her angles—cheekbone, shoulder, the soft line of her mouth—committing them to memory so I can paint her later exactly as she is in this moment.
She’s smiling. But it’s pained.
The tears she keeps wiping away aren’t for this love.
They’re for the love she just found—and can’t keep.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
The pastor’s words snap me back to my own body, just in time to feel my chest cave in. My heart nearly combusts as I watch my father kiss the new Mrs. Dawson.
Emily doesn’t look my way. Not once.
We take an obnoxious amount of family pictures by the beach. Her hand grazes mine only once, briefly, and it’s cold. Empty.
After our parents finish their “first dance,” I retreat to the balcony with a bottle of vodka.
“Hey, man.” Matt steps out to join me. “You do know your parole officer is here, right?”
“I’m highly aware of that.”
“You don’t think he’ll try to give you a test or anything?”
“Doubt it, since I’m not driving anywhere tonight.” I take a swig from the bottle. He sits next to me.
“How long has it been going on?” he asks.
“Ever since I was released,” I say. “He checks on me a lot more than legally necessary, but I doubt he’ll hold today against me. He’s here to meet celebrities.”