Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 168980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
“I didn’t!” Kits screams.
“You fucking did!”
“I LOVE SULLI!” The power in his voice rings the air. “That’s what this is about—not money, not a damn job! I fell in love with your daughter, that’s it!”
“So she doesn’t pay you a fucking dime to protect her?!” my dad shouts back, barely digesting Akara’s proclamation. “Tell me she doesn’t?!”
He’s fallen in love with me.
I nearly sway back from the conviction in Akara’s voice, from his face that looks torn in agony. Like he’s about to lose me.
I wish my heart wasn’t being torn apart right now because I’d love to just hang onto the words he screamed into the world.
Let them guide me where I need to go.
I exhale a big breath and look to the man beside Akara. I hold onto Banks’ gaze, which stays on me with a kind of comfort I could walk right into. Even several feet away, his eyes whisper against my anxieties and fears, I’m right here, mermaid. I’m right here.
Akara breathes through his nose, so pent up with anger that he has to turn his back to my dad. He tries his best to cool off, even as Banks squeezes his shoulder.
I think my dad can’t conceptualize that I’m dating both men because he’s solely focused on Akara and his role as a bodyguard in my life.
My dad keeps going. “It’s not about money, but you’re getting money from her to do a job! Instead, you did what?!”
No one says anything as the rhetorical question lingers. Quiet seeps into the taut air. The longer we just stand and breathe and feel, pain and guilt continue to twist my dad’s face—guilt, I think, for agreeing to put Akara on my detail for all those years.
I don’t want to hurt my dad. That was never my intent in all of this.
As more pain snakes around us, I want to yell about how Moffy and Jane pay their husbands to protect them, but my throat is swollen closed. My dad is fueled by something I can’t understand. I’m not a parent.
And the trauma surrounding my birth has left scars that are ripping back to open wounds.
Wind picks up, and birds caw in the distance. My dad turns his glare to the ground. “Sulli,” he says to the earth and dirt, then up to me. “You’re coming home with me. Right fucking now.”
Tears threaten to spill from my eyes. He’s just protecting me. He’s just protecting me. He’s just protecting me! Then why does it hurt so fucking much? I don’t want to choose between my dad and them.
It was wishful thinking, wasn’t it?
To think I could have it all with no horrible consequences.
I don’t want to lose my dad.
I can’t.
I can’t.
Silence eats between us.
My dad glares up at the sky, then down, then back to Akara and Banks. Fists are clenched at his sides. “Sulli, get in the fucking car.”
The car isn’t even in sight. We have to hike the trail back to the parking lot first.
Akara has a hand on his head, breath shortened and face practically shattered. Banks is unblinking, staring into me as I look from Kits to him, back to Kits, back to him.
Banks nods once to me like, it’s okay, but his eyes are bloodshot. Has he blinked at all? Is he barely breathing too?
I want to run towards them.
Into their arms.
Not away.
I’ve finally found that can’t-eat-can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff. A movie quote my mom always recited from It Takes Two. Love that she always talks about, and I think back to those days in Yellowstone under an October sky. Where pain and fear after the animal attack were washed away to utter peace and solace. How fucking scared I was—how I couldn’t let go of a gun, but they were there; they were there. And through glassy eyes and staggered breath, I let go of my fear and embraced both men, and then I couldn’t let go of them. Because nothing else felt better.
Nothing else felt more right.
My heart called me in their direction—it’s been calling me towards them—and running away will destroy so many pieces of me.
“Let’s go,” my dad says, picking up his fallen rappelling gear.
“No,” I breathe out my decision in a wave of pain. “I’m going back with Akara and Banks.” I have to. And I start to walk to them.
Banks rests a comforting hand on my shoulder, and my dad turns his gaze back on me, narrowed in on his hand and my shoulder.
Something snaps in my dad, and he lunges. Dropping the rope again, he frees his hand and shoves Banks hard.
“DAD!” I scream.
Banks staggers back several feet away from me. My dad stalks forward like he’s going to rip Banks to shreds. Akara is pulling Banks even further away from my dad, trying to protect him.