Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Would you rather have one day to do anything you wanted to do with me or have mediocre sex with a famous actress of your choosing?
Would you rather lose your first love or live the rest of your life together but hating each other?
Yeah, like I thought. Impossible to answer.
Not because I didn’t know the answers, but because I didn’t want to voice the answers aloud and let everyone in the room in on exactly what I felt towards the woman.
Chapter 6
If you put me in a corner, I’m going to fuck my way out of it.
-Jessie to Ellen
Ellen
Several weeks later
I had only been back in the Mooresville area for less than a year. I’d dated Sean for part of that time, but it’d been the last five months since Jessie had come back into my life that had thrown my existence up in the air. Five months since he’d told me to stay away from him.
Five months of wanting answers and getting none.
I was on edge. I was cranky. And honestly, I just wanted out of here.
So, I was leaving.
I’d called the movers. I’d closed up my shop. A shop, I might add, that I didn’t even want to begin with. But hell, a woman had to make a living somehow, even if it was doing a job that she hated.
“Are you sure about this?”
That was my landlord.
He was a fairly nice guy, but he expected way too much a month in rent for a little shop that wasn’t even in the main part of town.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, finishing off the check for the early lease termination fee.
“Okay,” he said, holding out his hand for the check. “You have until the end of the month to get your belongings out of here, or I’ll be forced to sell them to recoup all of my money.”
I refrained from saying that he wasn’t out any money, seeing as I was paying nearly a thousand dollars for the early termination of my lease, but instead I chose to stay silent.
That was my go-to emotion lately.
When I wanted to scream, I stayed silent.
When I wanted to cry, hit something or complain, I stayed silent.
Hell, even my own brother had noticed the change in my behavior.
“Well, I’ll see you later, Ellen. I’m sorry to see you go.”
I waved at him, then turned back to survey what was left of my shop.
I needed to box up the bolts of fabric, but to do that, I had to go to Lowe’s to get a few more boxes.
Sighing in frustration, I snatched my car keys from the counter, pocketed my debit card and license and shoved my purse underneath the counter. Then I walked outside, turned to lock the door and hurried quickly toward my car to avoid getting completely soaked to the bone.
I stared at the old girl as I moved.
I really needed a new car.
One that started when I needed it to and wouldn’t break down when I least expected it.
On that annoying thought, I got to my car, unlocked it, and got in.
After pumping the gas pedal a few times, I put the key in the ignition and started it.
Thank God the motor turned over and purred to life.
It was iffy these days.
Sometimes, if I held my mouth just right, it would turn over and surprise the ever-loving crap out of me. Like it had today.
But others, like when I was coming out of Lowe’s with a buggy full of boxes, twenty minutes later, it didn’t.
I stared at the car’s dials, noting the full gas tank, and the good battery.
I tried it again.
And got the same result: nothing.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” I said, tilting my forehead sideways to the cool glass of the window.
There were two things I didn’t want to do. One was call my brother.
And two was tell him why I was at Lowe’s buying boxes in the first place.
If I couldn’t get my car started, then I’d have to tell him and deal with it when he got upset that I was leaving.
But I couldn’t stay here anymore.
Although I’d have to tell him eventually—probably about ten minutes before I headed out to my next destination—I didn’t want to do it now.
Because he might try to stop me, and I really didn’t want him to stop me.
I wanted out of this stupid little town with its bad memories. I wanted away from the man who made my heart hurt every time I saw him.
I needed space.
I needed something, anything, that would give me relief from all the pain here.
A tap on my window startled me and I jumped as I turned my head to see a pair of denim jeans staring at me through the window.
A well-filled-out pair of denim jeans.
I put my hand to the window crank and rolled it down before looking up at the owner of the jeans.