Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
He set his palm on my face and brushed the pad of his thumb over my cheek.
Softly.
Tenderly.
Just staring across at me.
“Through it all, Aria. We’re going to get through it. Whatever is coming our way.”
“I know,” I promised.
He gave a slight nod, and I inhaled a steeling breath as I turned back to look out toward my mother, who waited. My hand flexed on the door handle, and I forced myself to open it and step out into the winter chill of Albany, New York.
My home for all my life.
Februarys here were always freezing. It was a different kind of cold from Faydor’s, though. Warm rays of sunlight rained down and caressed my face.
A promise that even though it might feel that way to me, this world wasn’t so desolate.
The soles of my shoes crunched on the long, dead grass as I made my way toward my mother.
She sat on the bench, her hair twisted in the same messy knot she so often wore, the grays interwoven in the browns now more profound.
I could feel the anxiety rolling off her.
Confounded waves that battered against me like an apology.
I stopped three feet away from her. My throat, still sore from the attack last night, grew so thick it was difficult to breathe.
I felt overwhelmed, looking at her like this.
The lines that had been carved so deep on her face, written in the horrors and the grief she’d found. Her entire world in shambles.
“Hi, Mom.” I could barely force it out.
The tears she’d clearly been trying to hold back slipped free. Long tracks that streaked down her face and dripped from her chin.
“Aria. You came.”
Nervously, I fiddled with my fingers. “I promised you that I would.”
Her attention darted toward Pax’s car, then slowly returned to me, her voice hoarse when she whispered, “No one could blame you for leaving this place and never coming back. No one could blame you for cutting us off and pretending like we never existed.”
A lump of grief pulsed in my chest. “I never wanted that.”
Sorrow billowed from her. “You only wanted to be believed.”
The nod I returned was weary. “It was the only thing I ever wanted. To be believed. To be seen. For you to understand me.”
She stared at me for the longest while, as if that was what she was doing—seeing me for the very first time.
Her gaze softened as her eyes traced over the exposed scars on my face.
Then she suddenly breathed out and lifted a blanket she had folded on her lap. “Here, I brought this for you. It’s freezing out.”
“Thank you,” I told her as I accepted it. I unfurled the heavy wool and wrapped it around my shoulders before I sat down on the bench beside her.
Taking a beat of respite from the heaviness, I gestured at my little brothers playing in the distance. “Those two would never know it’s even cold, though, would they?”
Mitch and Keaton were chasing each other, laughter rolling off them as they tagged each other back and forth.
“You’re it!”
“No, you’re it!”
Their sweet little voices carried on the breeze.
My heart fisted.
God, I’d missed them so much. Had worried so much, unsure if I’d ever get to see them again.
Mom let go of a mild chuckle. “They seem to be completely immune to anything but the other’s antics. I asked your brothers and sister to give us a little time to talk. Asked them to keep themselves entertained, and of course, your brothers are out there bickering.”
My laugh was quiet. “They might argue, but there’s nothing truly malicious about it.”
I could feel the weight of her cautious curiosity burn into my cheek. “And you know that? You can feel it?”
I dropped my head and fiddled with a piece of fringe on the blanket as I murmured, “I can.”
Tension strained between us before she begged, “I don’t understand, Aria. I don’t understand how any of this is possible. I thought for years . . .” She trailed off, unable to say it.
That I was crazy.
Insane.
Hurting myself.
“You could only see what you could see. What you could understand. Every choice you made was because you cared about me. I know that.”
Sadness bleared her eyes. “But it still hurt you.”
Head downturned, I grabbed her hand, squeezing it so tightly that my knuckles blanched as I whispered, “You did. But I get it. All of this is . . . terrifying.”
“I spent so many years being afraid for you, Aria. Terrified for the one I loved so much.” Mom breathed out as she tightened her hold on my hand. “I spent years aching for you. Praying for a way to fix it. For a way to take away whatever tormented your mind, so you could be free. Live a healthy and happy life. And now . . .”
She gulped, her head shifting away, her chin quivering as she struggled with the truth.