Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
He feels…real.
“Preston! Hang in there, okay? I’m here…okay? I’m right here.”
Why does he sound choked?
Don’t be like that, Marcus. You should…breathe. I got rid of me, so…so you should have one less problem in your life, yeah?
I reach for him, or I think I do, because tears shine in his eyes.
For me.
Why is he crying for me?
“Baby…please…” he begs, his voice raw and scraped. “Don’t leave me, please…”
Don’t cry.
My fingers twitch against something—air? His jacket? His face?
I don’t know.
“We have so much we need to talk about, remember? You can’t…just leave. Baby, please…”
For the tiniest, meanest heartbeat of a moment, regret slices through the calm.
Not about Violet.
Not about the bullet.
About him.
About not fighting.
Not staying.
Not dragging my broken, defective self through one more night beside him.
I should’ve had him again. Properly. Without running afterward.
“I’m sorry,” I try to say, but my tongue feels thick, my mouth glued with the taste of iron.
I’m sorry, I loved you.
The words stay trapped behind my teeth as my vision tilts and goes dark at the corners.
“Preston, no! Baby…baby…baby…no!”
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
Seems that’s what I can do best. Just apologize like my parents.
I’m sorry I ruined your life just like I ruined mine, Marcus.
Turns out, I’m the one saying goodbye after all.
33
MARCUS
Ihate my birthdays.
I’ve always fucking hated my goddamn birthdays, and despite Mom’s attempts to cheer me up during them, I’ve wanted to forget them.
But now, I feel like I’ll never forget my birthday.
On my twenty-second birthday, Preston was shot.
It happened right before my eyes, but I couldn’t stop it.
I could only stand there and watch as a bullet ripped through his chest.
It almost feels surreal. Just minutes ago, he was so touchy and close to Violet and Dahlia.
Yes, I was there most of the time, leaning my back against a tree and watching him like I usually do when he shuts me out.
It’s a sickness, maybe, a desire for something unattainable. The more I can’t have him, the more my entire being roars to life, needing to reach him.
Toxic, yes, but I never claimed to be a saint.
And no, there’s no reality where Preston belongs to someone other than me.
If anything, I’ve been having these thoughts lately—like I should’ve pursued him since that first college league game we played three years ago. The first time this little rivalry turned into something more.
Or maybe I should’ve started in high school. When Preston really looked at me, and I mean looked at me, after that time when we were kids. The first time he noticed me, when he put me on his shit list and vowed to bring me down.
The first time he saw me.
Sure, he only saw me as an opponent he needed to crush, an adversary, a challenge—because he loves his challenges, my Preston.
Back then, I should’ve shot my shot.
Should’ve made him mine and never let him go.
Maybe that way, I wouldn’t have suffered through average sex and a lack of emotional connection.
Maybe, by now, he would’ve been comfortable enough with me to tell me what the fuck terrorizes him when he closes his eyes at night.
Maybe he would’ve confessed about what happened to him that causes any form of intimacy outside of sex to make him as rigid as a board.
I have an idea, but I’ve refused to speculate or think about it.
But perhaps I should’ve. Maybe I needed to push him more out of his comfort zone.
Perhaps I had to just…be there. At all times.
I was there today, but I was busy being jealous of his closeness with Violet to act in time.
And now, he’s in surgery, fighting for his life because I couldn’t protect him.
The waiting room hums like a broken light—too bright, too white—smelling of antiseptic I never loathed until this moment.
Jude is pacing a path into the linoleum. Kane stands with his arms crossed, his back to the wall like he’s holding it up by sheer will. Lawrence is the only one sitting, perfectly composed in one of the ugly blue chairs, his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced, his knuckles white. His face is blank.
I stay by the doorway. Not in. Not out.
My thumb taps against my middle finger in a slow, controlled rhythm.
One, two, three.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Start again.
Preston will get out of this.
I’ll take him and go.
Somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Away from guns and emotionally stunted fathers.
He gets out. I take him. We leave.
I repeat it until the words stop sounding like a wish and start feeling like a plan.
Jude’s gaze cuts to me as he stops in front of me, his arm wrapped in a bandage that’s soaked through.
No idea how it happened, couldn’t have fucking cared less as I was holding Preston in my arms, whispering that he’d be okay, that I’d be here, begging him not to go.
The only reason I released him when Kane pulled me away was so the medics could take his cold, unconscious body to the ambulance.