Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
I cross my arms, suddenly noticing the cold bite in the air. At least it’s not snowing, but my bare feet are absolutely not going to cut it out here. Somewhere in the distance, a twig breaks and echoes dramatically. A little creature chitters. Wait. How do I know it’s little? Do bears chitter?
Of course not. That’s ridiculous. Bears don’t chitter.
But aliens might.
I slowly sink into a defensive stance, lifting my veil in both hands like I’m about to go Jack Reacher on whatever comes at me from the woods.
For the first time since my tied knot trot, the reality of my situation sinks in. Yes, I’ve been thinking about nothing but what I just did for the last few hours. But there’s a difference between thinking about something and feeling something.
Right now in this moment, I feel it like a punch in the gut.
I slowly lower the veil and decide the cold air and my lack of proper clothing or heat is the only real threat I’m facing. Well, unless being subject to my obviously poor decision making for the rest of my life qualifies as a threat. It probably should.
I let out a long sigh. What the hell am I doing?
The answer seems to come straight out of the ether. You’re acting like an idiot. Call your brother. Ask for help.
I glare at nobody in particular. That was supposed to be a hypothetical question, but I pull my phone out anyway and make a call to my brother in tears. I explain where I am, what happened to my car, and brace for impact. I might even ask for confirmation that aliens aren’t chittering at me as we speak.
His deep voice comes very slowly and very controlled. “Andi. Tell me you’re not hurt. That’s all I care about right now.”
“I’m… I bled my own blood a little.” I tap my forehead and find the cut has already started to dry over. “It’s not bad, though.”
“Fuck. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“No!” I shout. “No. Please, I can’t afford a freaking ambulance. I’m so broke I was actually relieved to crash – now I don’t have to figure out how I was going to pay to fill up the gas tank.”
“I’ll pay for it. For fuck’s sake, Andi. You crashed your car. We’re all worried as shit here. I’ve been looking through the forest for six hours trying to find you. I thought maybe you had a seizure, wandered off, and fell down to freeze or something.”
“Sorry,” I say, fidgeting with the torn edge of my wedding dress. “No. I just… realized Landon was never the right guy. I didn’t want to believe the magic was fading, and I kept thinking I could fix it later. But this morning I realized I was acting crazy. I should know it in my bones when a guy is right. I shouldn’t have to talk myself into it or make excuses. And… well, then I became the altar aviator.”
There’s a long pause. “Where are you right now?”
“Like half an hour outside Frosty Harbor on some random ass forest road and suddenly thinking maybe going commando in my wedding dress wasn’t the most climate appropriate decision.”
“You wh–” He pauses again. “I’m going to call the guys and have them come pick you up. They should just be finishing up practice now.”
“You mean I finally get to meet your teammates? All it took was a betrothal bypass, a car crash, and a lack of proper winter gear?”
“Could you please stop coming up with weird phrases to describe what you just did, Andi? This is serious. There are like a hundred people here right now trying to figure out where the hell you are. When I tell them–”
“You can’t tell them. They’ll all just try to make me come back, and I can’t do that. I need this. I need to hide out for a while and get my head on straight. Please, Jake. You can call your teammates, but don’t tell anyone else I talked to you.”
He sighs. “They’re going to find out eventually.”
“Then I’ll deal with it eventually. But not right now. Please.”
“Dammit, Andi.”
I bounce on my feet a little, already feeling the bitter cold from the dirt trying to sink straight into me. Maybe I need to just wait in the car and hope it isn’t about to explode or something.
“How is Landon handling it?” I ask, wincing even as I say the words. It feels like that time I asked my doctor if the three headaches I had last month meant I had a brain tumor. I really didn’t want to know the answer, but I hoped I was just being paranoid, and I knew if I didn’t ask I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
Turns out, three headaches in a month is perfectly normal. Who knew?