Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
“I love you.”
Marcus
Her fingers slip between mine, delicate and warm against the scars of my past and the roughness of callous acts that will stay with me forever.
“I already miss him,” Delilah says to me. Her gaze stays fixed ahead with the admission, past the streetlights and vacant sidewalks of this Podunk town.
“You miss everyone,” I say, offering her a truth. She hasn’t seen her sister and stopped speaking to her altogether when Cadence begged her to go therapy. I think one day she’ll cave to it. I think it would help her more than anything and if my information serves me right, there may be information to gather at that Rockford Center that her sister works at. All in due time, though. Right now it’s only the two of us and we can take as much time as we need.
Her long lashes flutter and her beautiful amber gaze meets mine for the first time since we drove out of that parking lot. “I know you mean that I miss my sister.”
A short, low grunt vibrates up my throat in confirmation.
“She just doesn’t understand.” Her words hold both disappointment and heartache. “None of them do.”
I nod in agreement. We’ve had this conversation more than once. It’s not their fault that they don’t understand. How could they?
“I wish you’d smile,” I whisper to her, bringing her hand she placed in mine to my lips. With a single kiss of her knuckles, warmth floods my chest. She smiles. A beautiful smile that belongs there on her pouty lips. I’m not sure when the cracked pieces slipped into place seemingly effortlessly, but it’s the smile I could have focused on. The bits of happy before the nightmare sets in.
I want it. Cravings for more of it tempt me every day.
“I’ll smile when you smile, Christopher,” she answers me, the simper still playing along kissable lips.
My name felt like a curse for so long, burdened by the weight of a past that sat on my shoulders, dictating my thoughts in dark whispers of remembrance. When she says it, though, with that pained voice, it echoes forgiveness and so much more than that.
It’s like a second chance. If I can only live up to what lies between the two of us, everything else drowns itself in a haze of dark fog when she says my name.
“I love it when you smile too, you know?” Delilah adds, slowing down at a red light and leaning back in her seat. Her small hand rests against cheek as she closes her eyes. I imagine she sees him there, my brother.
“He wasn’t smiling,” I comment beneath my breath and it’s my turn to stare past the solid red light although no cars pass in front of us. The dread of knowing his pain overwhelms me. To love someone so desperately, but let her slip through fingers that cannot contain her.
“He’ll smile again.” Her confidence comes with a pat of her hand over mine. Squeezing my fingers, she adds, “I have faith.”
I’ve wondered if I’d stolen this beautiful little mouse from him. If something about me tainted her. But then I remember everything. Every piece of this puzzle that built the picture of us. I don’t feel guilty for taking her. I’m sorry I didn’t claim her as my own long ago.
She was always meant for me. Nothing else resonates with my intuition. There is no rhyme or reason to life, nothing fate could ensure that makes logical sense as to how I else would end up in bed with Delilah every night. My thumb resting against her bottom lip before kissing her every night so she may sleep deeply and dream of sweeter things than I have to offer.
She was meant for me, and I was meant for her. Life isn’t fair like that, but I happily accept its offer.
In return, she has all of me. I have a beautiful woman’s forgiveness, her love and her life. I’ll keep it safe, forevermore.
“I love you,” I admit to her again. She says it far more than I do. “I love you more than anything.” If it weren’t the truth, I wouldn’t be here with her. Starting over, spending a quiet life together with only us. She knows that.
Bad men always lose and I lost myself to her. It’s a fair trade and one I’d make ten times over.
“And I love you the most,” she tells me. I know that it’s true. It might hurt her, maybe even both of us, but I need her and she loves me the most.
Cody
Weeks later …
It’s far too quiet to keep the thoughts away. The memories come and go as easily as the breeze whipping across my face in the pitch-black night. There isn’t a star in sight, nothing but the faint lights from Jackson Street peeking through the thicket of pine trees lining the empty playground. The muted creak of the swings blowing in the wind is my only companion.