Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“Talk about whatever had my husband pacing the hall, muttering to himself, on the phone to Rowan every hour asking for ‘updates,’” she demanded.
“How do you know I had anything to do with that?” I hedged.
“Because the only word that was said more than ‘fuck’ was ‘Calliope.’” Her mouth was turned down, somehow knowing how grave the situation was.
Like her husband, the usually smiling Fiona was familiar with the underbelly of the world, true trauma and ugliness. Like recognized like, I guessed. As hard as I was trying to construct a façade that walked and talked like the Calliope I was before, I simply didn’t have the energy to commit to it.
And my best friend saw right through it.
She wasn’t doing well at hiding her concern from her face. I saw the crease between her eyebrows, the careful way she was holding her glass, the cautious way in which she spoke, as if her tone might shatter me.
And it felt like one wrong step would do it. Like there was a hairline fracture down the core of me, and one misstep, I’d be nothing but broken pieces.
“My past caught up with me,” I took a sip, pausing to look out the window. “That’s a lie.” I released a heavy breath and looked back at Fiona. “I went and caught up with it. Freed myself of former bad decisions. Freed myself from bad men. It was … messy but successful. And it affected me more than I’d expected it might.”
I wasn’t about to give her more. Elliot knowing more was enough for me. And he was right; I wasn’t practiced at relying on people, showing them weakness. I thrived on being the capable older sister, the one everyone turned to, the one no one needed to take care of.
Elliot was right about that being a part of my identity, so I clutched on to it with a kind of mania that wasn’t healthy and made me blind to all the people who were willing to let me lean on them, willing to love any version of me.
And that’s what Fiona was doing. Sitting there, waiting, proverbial arms out, ready to catch me.
“I know a thing or two about bad men and the process it takes to rid them from your life. Or this earth.” She toyed with the stem of her own glass.
Yeah, Fiona knew a thing or two. She had endured an abusive marriage in the midst of multiple miscarriages, had run halfway across the world to escape her powerful abuser, married Kip in order to secure a visa, fell for him, and then almost died at the hands of her ex-husband. While pregnant.
Then her current husband had killed her ex right in front of her after she almost drowned.
Yeah, she knew a thing or two.
I’d been there. Throughout it all, unable to help beyond my presence, fucking furious at how powerless I was to actually fix anything. But I was there. For my friend. And I was so fucking proud of how she’d recovered.
“I’m definitely acquainted with keeping troubles close to the chest.” She took a sip. “Not wanting to weigh anyone down. Wanting to be a badass bitch who can handle her shit and not ask for help, especially from a man.” She quirked a brow at me. “Sound familiar?”
“Vaguely.” I grinned before taking a sip of my own drink.
“You’re better than most.” She grinned back. “Sounds like you’ve done it for half a lifetime.”
“Bitch, if you’re insinuating that I’m middle-aged, I will cut you,” I snapped good-naturedly.
Fiona laughed. “You are definitely not. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you. One where yes, you can do the unthinkable—like rely on a man. A good one. They exist. We have suspicious amounts of proof here in Jupiter.”
I laughed. She wasn’t wrong. The concentration of decent, if not a little overprotective, men here in Jupiter, Maine, was suspicious.
“Maybe it’s some government experiment to see if our ecosystem will collapse in the face of men who are decent, feminist and masculine all at the same time?” I mused.
She laughed. “Fuck no. Not our government. That’s a whole industry built on toxic men oppressing women.”
I shrugged. “I have faith that the system will topple.”
“I do too.” She resituated herself to look directly at me. “Decent man notwithstanding, you also have a bunch of girlfriends who are chomping at the bit to catch you. Even if you refuse to fall or acknowledge that you need help, we’ve got our arms out, ready and waiting to ensure that you don’t hit the ground.” She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Elliot is a great man. But he can’t be everything. Don’t fuck this up by thinking he’s all you’ve got to rely on and then sabotage your own happiness because you refuse to be a burden or whatever the fuck you’ve got going on in your head. You’ve got us too. A sisterhood. And we will all collectively scalp you if you do something as toxic and predictable as hurt Elliot for his own good. This isn’t fucking White Fang.”