Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“I love you,” he cried softly.
“I’m a murderer.”
“What you are, I am, remember?”
Fuck, those words hurt. I wouldn’t sully him with them anymore. He wasn’t this. He wasn’t me.
“I don’t want you anymore.”
“Stop saying that! You don’t mean it.”
“I do!” I replied too loudly. A guard eyed me. “Don’t come back. Don’t ever come back.” Be happy. Be free. He was everything beautiful, and I’d done something terrible. “Guard,” I called. “I’m ready to go.”
“Gage?” He looked at me with those eyes that had always made me feel like the king of the world. Now I felt lower than dirt because I was hurting him, flaying him open, making him raw, but in the end, it would be better for him. He could have a better life this way.
I turned and walked away.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
But I couldn’t be the Gage I needed to be in here if I still had them.
PART TWO
Who We Became
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Joey
After the trial and everything, Romeo, Mouse, and Katie had cleaned the house. Romeo and Mouse being there didn’t surprise me, but Katie did. She was heartbroken, the pain tangible in her eyes—for Gage, for me, and I thought for herself too. Maybe she really had loved Gage. He obviously would have been better off with her.
I hadn’t been able to go into the house after that, not once. Too many memories around every corner, every piece of furniture, a life of pain with Dad and love with Gage. Somehow, I even missed the pain from Dad, which was fucked up. But if he were still there, then Gage would’ve still been with me, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to make that happen.
Mike called often in the beginning, but I ignored his calls, and eventually they petered out. I stayed with Mouse and her mom in their tiny trailer, sleeping in bed with Mouse every night, waking her up crying.
How had we been so stupid? We should have gone somewhere else. We should have been more careful. Of course something would go wrong on that particular weekend—electrical problems at the event venue, I learned later—and Dad would come home.
It had been months since that day. Gage had told me goodbye, he was in prison, and I was still being weak…so weak.
I’d cried so much, I would have thought I’d run out of tears. How was it possible for a body to create that much water? But it just kept coming. It would be a whole lot easier if somehow my tears evaporated, if I shriveled up and died like my heart had.
Mouse’s arms slid around me in bed. “It’s okay, Joey. He’ll come around.”
But we both knew he wouldn’t. Gage had made up his mind. He’d decided what was best. He didn’t want me anymore, and that was that.
“He won’t see you or Romeo either. He didn’t return your letters.”
She kissed the top of my head, shushed me. “Maybe…and I only say this because I love you…but it’s possible it’s for the best.”
I froze, then jerked away from her and sat up, my back against the wall. “Why would you say that? So I’m just supposed to go on with my life, go to college and be happy while Gage is rotting away in prison?”
“Yes and no. I know that sounds harsh. I love Gage, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t change it. Shouldn’t something good come out of it? That’s what Gage wants. You can give him that.”
“Fuck you, Mouse.”
She didn’t even flinch. “I know you love him. You can keep writing him. We can try and visit during breaks, but Romeo is already in LA.” He’d left. His parents hadn’t allowed him to stay later, and why should he? He had a life and needed to move on. “I was able to defer a semester, and you were too, but we won’t be able to do that again. We have to go.”
“Leave, then.” I shrugged, crawled over her and out of bed.
I couldn’t leave Hendersonville, even though I wanted to so bad. I could hardly show my face in public. Everyone was talking about me, about Gage, about me and Gage together. There were stories, so many stories—him taking advantage of me, us planning to kill my dad, that I was the one who’d done it and Gage had taken the fall for me. But leaving felt like a betrayal to Gage. He was stuck in a maximum-security prison, and I was supposed to live it up in Los Angeles the way we’d planned, following my dream?
Be strong. I thought you were going to be stronger, better…
“You can still love Gage from LA.”
I would always love Gage, no matter where I was. The only thing I couldn’t love anymore was myself.