Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
One other notable detail? She looks completely pissed off.
This is generally the part of the night where the regret at agreeing to whatever it is my parents promised sets in. After I turn around, it goes downhill from there. Fast.
I show her more of my face while she stands there with her hands balled into fists at her side, but it’s only so I can fully appreciate her expressive taste in fashion.
“Let me guess,” I venture. “You had this situation forced on you too.”
Her face doesn’t relax fully, but she does look less like she’s about to undergo six back-to-back root canals.
“There’s been a nice dinner prepared for us. If you don’t mind, we could hate our lives and barely speak to one another while eating?”
Her hands clench and unclench, and her shoulders sink as she lets out a breath. “It would be a shame to let good food go to waste.” She turns to the table, where two places are set, one at each end. It’s not a monolith, but it could seat at least sixteen people. “Did you intentionally boobytrap this?”
“Nothing is poisoned, I assure you.”
“We’re supposed to talk, I assume.” She motions to the plate way down at the end. “Even if it’s forced, shouting at each other to be heard is only going to make it seem like I’m angry.”
“Are you?”
“At being here?” Her brows have been drawn on. They’re whip-thin but still quite able to draw together over the bridge of her dainty nose. A septum piercing sparkles in the antler lighting. “Yes. You’re right. It wasn’t my choice. I’m not mad at you, though. Your parents arranged this with mine. There was nothing we could do.”
“Do you know about what happened then?” We said we’d sit, but we haven’t.
“My mom mentioned something,” she mumbles. She has a nice voice. It’s sweet. It doesn’t match all that black. “That you were in an accident and that you’ve had some surgeries.”
Her honesty is refreshing. There’s nothing worse than having to endure meeting people and watching them go through the stages of pretending that the one side of my face doesn’t sort of resemble a half-rotten head of cauliflower. “You’d be surprised at the damage a ladle can do when hurled at high velocities, not to mention the shrapnel a jar of pickled vegetables can turn into. Or the hot oil.”
“You had a run-in with vegetables?” she asks.
“At high velocity.”
“Well then, let me see,” she says.
This is it. The wretched moment of truth. I used to think that if I weren’t so dramatic about it, it wouldn’t be so bad, but I’ve been proven wrong. Every. Time. It’s so much easier to face the window than it is to face someone else’s horror and disgust. I don’t like to etch images into someone’s brain to be used for nightmare fodder later.
My face is vastly better after the surgeries, but it’s still the opposite of a work of art.
“I’ll tell you it’s alright to scream, gasp, or cry, but if you have to throw up, please let me know ahead of time. Adam would insist on cleaning it up, and for someone in the medical profession, his stomach is shaky at the best of times.”
She laughs, then stops, groaning. “Oh my god. Is that actually based on experience, or is that just your way of trying to make the best of a bad situation? I do agree that sarcasm can be fun.”
“So far, no. But prospective wife number seven did faint. I caught her, and she came to while I was lowering her to the floor, which caused her to faint again.”
“Are you serious?”
“About which part?” I ask.
“All of it.”
“Unfortunately,” I say.
“It’s just all very… uh… gothic. But you’re missing the castle and the royalty status.”
The rich, rolling sound of my laughter surprises me. Her calling me gothic is hilarious. But she’s serious too.
“I know I’m a recluse, but you’re right. No castle. Just a timber frame home with a bunch of big stone arches that rise right out of the water like some kind of medieval miracle. The house used to be a bed and breakfast.”
“Really?”
It’s not my style, but at the time, I wasn’t worried about the damn architecture. I just needed to creep to somewhere dark and isolated to lick my wounds and await the surgeries that would take me from monstrous to… less monstrous.
“Yes. It might not have been exactly what I wanted, but at least one side is a lake, and the other is gated. It makes it rather hard for people to jailbreak their way in. Not that it hasn’t happened.”
“I read that story that journalist wrote. Apparently, he camped out for a month.”
“More than. With a telescopic lens. Not even Stonewell and his repeated threats scared him off, so I let him have his interview. He sat at the table while I stood right here. I never turned around. He was layered up with NDA’s after, except for a list of things he could say or print. He didn’t like that, but he was giddy at the fact that I obviously wasn’t going to speak to any other publications.”