Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“You’ve lost weight,” she whispers.
“Thrilling. Maybe I should get my heart beaten to a pulp more often,” I throw back.
“Oh no, honey. It’s not a compliment.” Her brows knit together and the corners of her meticulously outlined lips turn down. “Look, Hattie, I know I’ve been worried about your weight before, but starving yourself because you’re unhappy is never a good thing.”
My jaw drops like I’m ready to swallow a hummingbird.
“You need some cheering up,” she whispers, opening the blueberry pie box and finding a knife in the drawer to carve two big slices. “If anyone’s earned this, it’s you.”
I slump down in my seat.
I’m still slack-jawed.
All the ugly tears I’ve been pushing back return with a vengeance.
God, if she’d just come at me with one of her smarmy comments, I would’ve been prepared.
I would’ve been protected.
But my heart has no shield just now.
We’ve bickered for so many years over appearances and health, it almost feels second nature.
Now with one kind gesture, she’s turned me into a heap of hurting gravel. I don’t know how to deal with it.
My face crumples.
“It was never real,” I moan as she hugs me again. This time, it feels more like embracing an old friend I’ve missed forever. “What I had with Ethan, it—it was fake, Mom.”
She shakes her head, staring at me.
“I don’t follow, honey. This is as real as anything I’ve seen. None of your boyfriends ever upset you like this.”
Way to rub it in.
But she’s also right.
I don’t know how to explain why it shouldn’t be worse than a tiny needle prick.
Sure, he sped up the breakup timeline, but this was always the plan.
“I don’t know the full story,” Mom says, rubbing circles on my back, “but I do know Ethan’s a troubled young man. There’s been plenty of talk about him fighting his own demons for years. He was always too much for you.”
He was, but he wasn’t.
It’s so confusing.
Ethan broke things off because he couldn’t cope with the fact that he’s not who he thought he was.
Margot filled me in on all the gory details the minute she heard about the breakup—after she fumed for ten minutes straight, cursing her ‘braindead ego-freak of a brother.’
I just listened because it was better than talking over the ice ball lodged in my throat.
She impatiently explained everything she knew, how pissed he is at his parents and Leonidas for keeping it from him.
And now the big identity crisis, just when he was getting his crap together.
I feel for him.
I do, and I’d sympathize more if he hadn’t responded by going scorched earth and exiling me from his existence.
One minute, he says he doesn’t trust me—all because I let my usual doubts take over and asked Margot about his past dating life.
The next, he wants me out of his house so much he’s risking a direct lightning strike.
I hate it.
I hate that I could have helped him, if he’d let me.
But nothing like the way I hate that he wouldn’t give me a chance.
And now I’m back to my acid fantasies, imagining how fast he’d dissolve away with his anger and regrets and allergy to love.
It shouldn’t matter who he is or what’s in his DNA.
If he loved me, he would have checked his anger.
He would’ve stayed.
Even so, in my twisted little acid daydream, I always try to pull him out before the tips of his shoes melt.
I always take him back, and he gives me that kicked puppy look before he whispers, “Hattie, you were right. I’m sorry and I love you.”
Yep.
I have no self-respect left in my tank.
It doesn’t help that Mom’s wrong.
Before all this stuff came between us, he was my perfect man. And he still could have been, even after all this, if he’d just talked to me.
If he actually wanted me, that’s what he’d do… right?
It’s an odd pain, the kind that skins me so slowly.
Sharp and dull simultaneously.
The way it pierces swiftly and then gets replaced by the ache of scar tissue.
Over and over again.
It’s been days. Well over a week, I think.
Time heals all, they say, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be over him. No matter how much I want to be.
“I don’t know what’s going on with Ethan,” Mom says gently. “But supposedly he’s vanished and left his company. It’s safe to say his issues go a lot deeper than anything that happened with you.”
But I wasn’t enough.
I was just one more issue he couldn’t handle. One more lie he had to run from.
It’s a rogue thought I can’t banish.
“I never should’ve acted like I deserved him,” I whisper. “Even if it was just pretend.”
“What? No! Hattie, you stop that.” Mom’s tone sharpens. “Listen to me—you’re a smart, funny, gorgeous, generous girl. You deserve so much better than a shit-bird who can’t tell up from down.”