Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
I stare at him for a few seconds, still and frozen. Unable to comprehend what he’s telling me. The only thing I can focus on is how he sounds. Somehow both rough and tender, cajoling and bossy. And again, concerned. And then as if to prod me further, he decides to follow his own advice and show me. He decides to breathe in, his ribs expanding like the wave and falling when he lets it out. When I still stare at him like I don’t understand, he adds softly, “Please.”
I’ve got a death grip on the sheets, but that one word from him makes me loosen it. It makes me follow his instructions and breathe. It’s probably nothing more than my survival instinct. I’m simply trying to do what helps me make it to the next second.
For the next several seconds, the only sound in the room is of our synchronized breaths. The only thing I see is the green of his eyes, the rise and fall of his massive chest, his arms that are still raised up in surrender, in peace. Like some kind of a joke. Like those hands will never hurt me. Like the man who’s helping me breathe will protect me until his last breath.
Well, if it’s a joke, then how come instead of laughing, I want to cry?
I don’t, though. I stay strong and slowly my body loosens up. My chest warms and the churning in my belly eases. And since he’s been watching me avidly ever since I noticed him in the room—knowing him, maybe even before that—his own breaths come easy. Something I hadn’t realized, that his breaths were strained as well, until I saw his chest moving smoothly.
I want to look at his shoulder again, hunt down his bullet wound, ask him if he’s okay, but I stop myself. I need to focus. I need to freaking focus on myself for once rather than him.
Slowly, he lowers his arms and I command on a whisper, my eyes direct, “Tell me.”
He watches me silently for a few seconds, but I wait him out. And then he declares, “I lied.”
And all the warmth my body had regained simply vanishes. I go back to gripping the sheets tightly and my breaths become choppy.
His jaw pulses for a long moment before he begins. “About that day in the car. It wasn’t only my ma and my daddy that I pulled out of a burnin’ car. I pulled out someone else too. Lynnie.” I flinch at the name, but for once he doesn’t notice. “Lakelyn, but we called her Lynnie. My sister.”
This time, I don’t flinch. I sit there frozen, shocked and afraid, terrified as I wait for him to speak. As I watch his body go taut, his features tightening, his scar standing in stark relief.
“She was thirteen,” he continues, his lips barely moving, the left side of his face seeming to be set in stone. “A couple of years younger than me. Still called her my baby sister, though. She hated that. Reckon that’s why I did it. She was… annoyin’, followed me everywhere I went. Wanted me to teach her how to climb trees, how to ride a horse, how to make those little stones skip on the lake. And Christ, I tried. Swear to God, I tried my best, but she was so fuckin’ bad at it, at all the ‘boy stuff’ like she used to call it. And then, blame me for not teachin’ her right. She…”
He slows down here and swallows several times, clenching his jaw, and my own throat feels too small for my emotions. My whole body feels too small for everything I’m feeling right now.
“She was good at other things, though,” he resumes. “Roses. She was good at ’em, better than our ma, even. Had her own little garden. She loved art, too, colors and stuff. Would spend hours sketchin’, paintin’, noticin’ things no one else did. If our parents were gonna bicker over somethin’, she’d be the first to read their moods and figure that out, would come out to the barn to tell me it was gonna be a big one. Where Daddy may have to get Ma somethin’, usually this blueberry pie from town, to make up for it. She was… she was the best sister I could’ve asked for, and she…”
His body shudders and he fists his hands at his sides, the tendons flexing on his forearms with the force. “She was in the car too. She overheard that we were goin’ into town, wanted to tag along. She always wanted that, loved goin’ into town, meetin’ people, makin’ friends. She was like our ma in that sense. Friendly, open, knew everyone, everyone knew her. She was in the backseat, right behind me. So when my window exploded, she got hit by it, too, the glass. Lynnie was the first one I pulled out, before… everythin’.”