Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Tim Walters ruined my life last summer, and after a year spent battling his wealthy, corrupt family for justice I never got, I was beyond broken—I was shattered. I’d lost hope that things would ever get better for me, but I couldn’t stop watching his life go on like nothing had even happened.
After a lifetime spent doing the right thing, it was crushing to realize that the bad guy wins if more people like him.
I was already dangling at the end of my rope, so I made the only decision I could live with.
I would give our story the ending it truly deserved.
What I didn’t account for was Tim’s twin brother.
Tor Walters decided it wasn’t time for my story to end. It simply needed a rewrite—and lucky for me, Tor has a gift for manipulating reality to better suit his artistic vision.
He takes over my life, but he does it so well, I’m mostly okay with it.
Until I realize Tor may not be who I think he is—who anybody thinks he is.
I thought I knew the Walters family, but I had no idea the depths of their depravity. I thought I vanquished the monster, but a little too late, I realize maybe there were two.
And the one who saved me?
He has no intention of letting me go
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PLAYLIST
Cry – Faith Hill
Bellyache – Billie Eilish
She Used to Be Mine – Sara Bareilles
Hand Me Down – Matchbox Twenty
My Tears Ricochet – Taylor Swift
This Is Me Trying – Taylor Swift
Tightrope – Michelle Williams (The Greatest Showman)
For Her – Jeremy Jordan (The Great Gatsby musical)
Father Figure – Taylor Swift
From Eden – Hozier
Someone You Loved – Lewis Capaldi
Think Twice – Eve 6
Coming Home Part II – Skylar Grey
We Go Down Together – Dove Cameron (with Khalid)
Tightrope – Sara Bareilles (The Greatest Showman Reimagined)
CHAPTER 1
CASSIE
I always wondered if monsters were born or made.
Over the past year, I’ve done some research on it. My social life died a quick, painful death, so I had a lot of time on my hands. I also needed to make sense of what had happened to me, how I was feeling, and how the world around me was responding. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d ever considered before, but I guess I always believed people were mostly fair-minded. That the sinner would be judged and the victim would be supported.
That isn’t how it’s gone.
And I did everything right.
I went through the excruciating visit to the hospital when all I wanted to do was curl up alone in my room and die. I sat through all the police interviews and dealt with questions from lawyers that somehow made me feel like I was at least partially responsible for what someone had chosen to do to me.
I did everything by the book, everything you’re supposed to do, and I did not get the justice I deserved.
I’ve tried to make peace with it. My mother says I’m too angry. She made me sit down with the pastor at our church, and he advised me to try to forgive—not for his good, but for my own. He said forgiveness would set me free.
But even if he’s right, what about him? Why does he get to be free with me?
I’ve tried everything to cope with the hand life has dealt me. A counselor recommended journaling, so I started journaling, but it wasn’t long before the notebook devolved into brutal fantasies of revenge. I stopped journaling and started doing a little creative writing—imagining over and over again how I would kill him if I could.
The people around me didn’t get it. He’d (allegedly) stolen sex, and (if I was telling the truth) that was bad, sure, but it’s not like he murdered someone.
He did, though. That’s what they don’t understand. They blame me for the way I’ve changed, but he is the one who changed me.
He did kill me that night.
He killed the girl I was for the first seventeen years of my life. She’s gone now, destroyed, and for the past year, I’ve been becoming someone else.
Someone angry.
Someone hurt.
Someone who no longer believes in karma, or that anyone else will protect her.
Someone who loves and who will defend herself, even if it’s the last thing she does.
I still have some of my old impulses, though.
When I walk into the kitchen tonight, I don’t turn on a light. Frank just got home a little bit ago, and I don’t hear the shower running, so he’s probably trying to fall asleep. I don’t want the light to disturb him.
I open the pantry. I know Mom bought the snack cakes I like, and since there’s a chance these are my last moments, I decide to indulge.
I’m crestfallen when I tilt the box and see the last plastic-wrapped cake fall into my hand. Ordinarily, I’d never eat the last of anything in case someone else wanted it, but I’m going to make an exception tonight.
Tomorrow, I’ll either be dead or in jail, so I think I’m going to take the last snack cake.
On impulse, I open the junk drawer and grab a pen and a sheet of paper. I hadn’t planned to, but maybe I should leave a note.
I grip the pen, letting it hover over the paper as I try to decide what to say.
“I’m sorry,” I finally write. On the line underneath it, I add, “I tried.”
It feels insufficient, but I don’t try to fix it. I’ve felt like a worthless failure for months now, so what’s one more lousy note?
I’ll be free soon, anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
I slip out of the front door and make my way to my car parked in the driveway. I knew I’d be leaving after Frank got home tonight, so I parked farther over than I usually do.
My gaze catches on my own reflection in the window. The girl looking back at me is pale and drawn, the light extinguished from her brown eyes. I hardly recognize her anymore.
It’s been that way for a long time, though.
I think about my pages and pages of writings during the drive to the lake house. Despite the clear bloodlust on those pages, I haven’t felt any glee or true viciousness while writing the scenes. It’s more like catharsis. Like I can finally breathe again in the final moment of the scene, when I’m looking down at his body.