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)
I’m crying enough now to need tissues, so Tor lets go of me long enough to grab one from the box on the bedside table. Wordlessly, he hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say softly, bunching it up and pressing it against my nose. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
I take a minute to wipe my nose and pull myself together, and once I’ve calmed down, I can speak again. “Anyway, it was like when a rock hits your windshield. The glass doesn’t just crack at the place of impact. The damage spreads and weakens wherever there’s a fracture, undermining the integrity of the entire thing. And that’s what it did to my life. It ripped away so many illusions that I thought were real. It made new cracks and showed me cracks where I had never seen them before. It cost me everything that ever mattered to me. It left me with nothing, and what do you do when you have nothing left?”
I meant it as a rhetorical question, but Tor reaches over, pulling me back into him. “You rebuild. Not the same structure as before. Something better, informed by what you learned from the one that collapsed.”
I nod, my gaze drifting past him. “Yeah. That’s what I want to do now. When I shot your brother, I had no plans to rebuild. I thought it was the end of my story, it was just the only ending I could live with. But you’ve given me a second chance. I want to write a different ending.” I focus back on his face. “I’m sorry if this whole conversation is… weird for you. I understand why it would be.”
He’s shaking his head before I can finish. “No, don’t apologize. This conversation needed to happen if we were ever going to really move past it. You needed to say your piece, and I needed to hear it.”
I’m so relieved he sees it that way that a weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying falls off my shoulders. I hug him. “That’s all I wanted,” I murmur against his chest.
“I know.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’m sorry it took all this for you to get it.”
I close my eyes, breathing in his smell and soaking up the feeling of finally being comforted by someone who understands what I lost.
My eyes only open when he speaks again. “Once we get past this week, I think things will get a lot easier.”
I haven’t wanted to ask about any of the arrangements for his brother, and I’ve gone out of my way to avoid seeing anything about them since I saw that flyer at the grocery store, but I feel safe enough with him to ask now. “Is the funeral this weekend?”
I feel his chest expand, hear him sigh. “It’s in two days. Then the thing at the football field. After that, it’s more or less over.”
I nod to let him know I heard him, but I don’t really have much to say about it.
He hesitates, which isn’t something I’m accustomed to from Tor, but when he finally does speak, I understand why. “I didn’t invite you to any of it for obvious reasons, but if you want to come…”
Immediately, my entire soul rejects the mere suggestion. “No.”
“Okay. I didn’t think so, but figured I should offer.”
I look up at him with an appreciative little smile.
Unfortunately, he follows it up with, “You will have to meet my family eventually.”
The smile melts, but I stay looking at him. “Yeah… I don’t know, Tor. We have so much history, and none of it’s good.”
“I know, but…” He sighs. “It’s my family, Cassie. And I’ll never take their side against you,” he adds. “I know I stood with them before, but it’s different now that we’re together.”
“They’ve been horrible to me.”
“I know,” he says, caressing my face. “I know they have. I’m not defending that. But the source of all that is gone now. Tim isn’t in the picture anymore. They only have one son left,” he states. “And I promise you that I will leverage that for all it’s worth to make sure they aren’t mean to you. All I ask is that you give them a chance. I’m not asking you to swallow anything. They took from you, and you took from them. What we need to do now is try to wipe the slate clean and start fresh from where we are. You only know what it’s like when they’re against you. Give them a chance to be on your side. If you and I work out, they’re going to be your family, too, and I would never ask you to debase yourself or betray yourself in any way. All I’m asking is that you be open to starting a fresh chapter with them.”
All he’s asking, as if that’s a small thing.