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)
At least my employees are happy, and so hardworking it screws my head back on. There’s a second wind around here since musty Mr. Sneed left.
If I won’t take this seriously for me, then I have to do it for them.
That’s the only reason I’m here, pretending to be a manager instead of a useless lump curled up on my sofa with a book and a pint of Jeni’s.
I’m their livelihood.
And I won’t be the reason these book happy people get borked right out of a job.
The bell jingles. I look up to see an elderly gentleman walking into the store.
Sweet, a distraction.
“Hello, sir,” I say too brightly, swinging out from behind the front desk.
Sarah also looks up and approaches the guy, ready to help.
It’s an unintended pincer movement. The old man looks briefly intimidated before her smile softens him.
She’s the kind of girl who could charm a nail out of the wall.
Her smile has just the right amount of teeth and her green eyes sparkle.
She gets to him first, probably just as bored as I am, though probably not as desperate.
“Hi, I’m Sarah. What can I help you find today?”
Deflated, I go back to my mind-map.
Even to my eyes, it looks childish.
I have no clue what I’m doing running a business—and definitely not running Sneed’s Books.
Also, yes, it’s a terrible name. Ethan was right.
Oh, Ethan.
My stomach cramps when his stupid cocky face appears in my brain.
I should probably be used to him when this happens multiple times a day, but every time it hits me like a sickness sweeping in for the first time.
We weren’t together.
It wasn’t even a breakup.
It shouldn’t feel this awful.
I hate him with every itty-bitty fiber of my being.
But sometimes I dream about the way he touched me, gently and delicately, like I was something precious.
I smile in my dreams where he still cherishes me.
Then I wake up with hot tears scalding my face.
All because he showed me what it meant to matter.
What it was like to be touched and kissed and adored.
What it was like to be loved, even if he only showed me silently and never said it.
Then he dropped a sledgehammer on my head.
God.
I steady my hurt breathing and tear a few useless pages from my scribbles, crumpling them in my hand before I toss the paper in the trash.
On a new page, I write a simpler plan: PAY DICKHEAD BACK.
Believe me, I know I can’t until I’m seventy.
He might think he can pay me off by gifting me the store, which was never part of the agreement, and sending me the rest of the money for a job I never finished, but that’s not how this works.
That’s not how I let him live rent free in my head forever.
So maybe I’ll take the original wad he paid me because I did pretend to be his fake fiancée for a bit. Fine, fair compensation.
That’s all I agreed to do.
Also, the practical voice inside me reminds me I could really use the money.
There’s not much of a cushion around here when the bookstore is barely up and running, certainly not with a lasting vision yet.
I’m not Ethan.
Even without Blackthorn Holdings, he’s still a rich man.
He has enough funds to hit reset on his life a hundred times over, and seeing how he’s disappeared from Portland, I guess he’s punched that button a lot.
No big goodbye.
Even Margot hasn’t heard from him. She called me the other day to ask if he’d gotten in touch because he hasn’t been texting her back.
But no.
Good thing, too, because if he texted right now, I’d drop my phone in a vat of acid just so I don’t have to see his texts anymore.
Crazy, but so what? I’m entitled to be a little unhinged and live my best Bateman murder fantasies.
I hope he falls in a vat of acid.
Ideally, after I’ve paid him back for the bookstore and the second installment, which sits in my bank account, teasing me to spend it.
I feel nauseous.
Because I’m the petty bitch I am, I hunch closer to the paper and draw Ethan, drowning in the nice big acid pool. Then I doodle him getting crushed by the big pile of money I send back.
Maybe I should mail it to him in one-dollar daily increments starting today?
Is that too cruel?
Ha, he’ll beg for the acid after a few weeks of that.
With a bitter giggle, I hope he feels guilty.
I hope he feels every sting of guilt and shame for what he did.
But I also hope he’s okay, dammit, wherever he is.
I hope he hasn’t let his demons win.
I hope they aren’t making him drink himself to death.
Mostly, I hope I never have to think about him again.
My chest caves in every time he strays into my thoughts, the same way he only struts into my life to pummel the happiness out of it.