Total pages in book: 190
Estimated words: 181992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Alicia rubbed at her nape. “I kept thinking he’d go back to the way he’d been during the first year we were together. That we were just going through a ‘bad patch.’ But that patch just stretched on and on, until I realized things weren’t going to get better.”
“There’s no reason to be mad at yourself for not wanting to give up on him or the relationship until you felt positive there was nothing left of it,” Harri told her.
I dipped my chin, in full agreement. “You’re being ridiculously hard on yourself. If it was me or Harri, you’d say the exact same thing.”
Alicia only looked down at her hands and began fiddling with her fingers.
Harri growled. “I’m totally gonna set Dario on fire if I see him again.”
Alicia barked a surprised laugh. “He’s not worth the jail time.”
“But you are.” Harri tossed back the last of her wine. “He hurt you. He should suffer for all eternity.”
“He will, because he’ll mess up his life in no time at all,” said Alicia.
“But I want a hand in it.”
Hearing my phone beep, I carefully bent down and fished it out of the purse I’d set on the floor, thankful I managed not to spill my wine. I looked down at the screen. Dax. My pulse did a crazy little skip.
He’d typed: You need to do something about this cat.
Checking out the photo he’d attached of a dead bird lying on the floor near his patio chair, I couldn’t help but wince. I replied: She’s just letting you know she loves you. It’s a gift.
Three dots danced on the screen for a few seconds. It’s a dead animal.
A gift, I repeated.
Yeah, if you’re a psychopath.
My lips twitching, I placed my phone on the armrest. This had become a thing over the past ten days or so. He occasionally texted me about this or that. With anyone else, it wouldn’t mean anything. But Dax wasn’t much of a texter, and he generally didn’t reach out to people—especially not about casual matters.
He also wasn’t a person who sought company. Yet, he’d taken to watching TV with me sometimes—especially true-crime stuff. He also invited me to join him in the pool on occasion, or to accompany him when he paid short visits to his siblings or parents.
In other words, he’d been doing some out-of-character things lately.
Obviously, I was pleased that the moat between us seemed to have narrowed. What didn’t please me were my responses. My pulse jumped whenever I received a text from him. My stomach went all fluttery when he joined me on the sofa to watch TV. My chest went tight whenever he invited me to swim with him or check in on his family.
People weren’t supposed to have such reactions to an attempt by a friend to reach out to or spend time with them, were they? They should maybe smile or feel light or even get excited. More specifically, they should feel touched in a platonic way. That wasn’t quite the case with me. And I’d come to realize two things.
One, I was beginning to care for Dax as far more than simply a friend.
Two, I could potentially fall for this man.
I’d known I might grow to care about him one day in the future. That could happen to two people who spent years of their life in the same house, raising children and building good memories. But there were levels of “caring,” weren’t there?
There was the kind of love you felt for a friend, relative, or someone you held in high regard—unromantic, warm, jovial, and long-lasting. It was all intertwined with fondness and familiarity.
Then there was a whole different kind of love. One you usually felt for your significant other. It ran deeper and could feel crucial to a person’s existence. It was passionate, profound, often selfless, and could easily become obsessive.
I hadn’t anticipated that I might experience the latter with Dax. As a teenager, I’d fallen for people easily. Not Dax, though. With him, I hadn’t felt in danger of toppling into the love pit. As such, I hadn’t expected it to happen now either.
But now that I thought about it, I realized that back then—knowing what we had could only be temporary—I’d purposely kept a distance from him in an act of self-preservation. This time round, I hadn’t. And it scared me that I could end up in a situation where I loved someone who didn’t return that love.
Being bound to a man who only “valued” me, a man to whom I’d always be second choice, would suck the most mega balls in history. But I could be worrying for nothing, couldn’t I? There was a possibility that I wouldn’t grow to feel that deeply for him. Especially when I generally never fell for emotionally unavailable men—Dax was the epitome of that.