Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 53529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
“He’s a friend I met at Clover,” I say.
“He? So Sam’s a guy.”
Yes, and he listens to me. He’s smart and caring, too. “Yeah. So?”
Huff shrugs in that special way when he’s really bothered but wants to hide it. “What is he at Clover for?”
Long story, but basically Sam’s mom’s new boyfriend turned out to be not such a good person. Sam had a little fist-to-fist talk with the douchebag and then ejected the guy from his mom’s place. The boyfriend pressed assault charges, and since there was no hard evidence to back up Sam’s or his mom’s claim that Douchebag hit her, the judge gave Sam the choice between two months at Clover for his “anger issues” or six months in county jail.
Poor guy. Not that he whined or sulked for one second in group. He calmly stated the facts: “I defended my mom, and if that means I have to be here for eight weeks, then so be it.”
So calm. So strong. Sigh… I met him my first week at Clover. We ended up chatting right away and really clicked.
Then, about five days after I got there, one of the staff—Buck, a male nurse—cornered me in my room. I screamed as he threw me to the floor. He said I had to suck his dick, or he’d make sure I spent four weeks in the “fluffy white room.”
Sam heard me yelling and flagged down one of the female nurses. They came in just as Buck was tearing out clumps of my hair. Sam pulled the guy off me and beat the shit out of him. For that “offense,” Sam was placed in the violent offenders’ wing of the clinic. When I found out, I went apeshit, and they sedated me. Again.
Oh, Sam… I need to get him out of there. And, frankly, Clover needs to be burned to the ground. I got lucky that I evaded a full-scale sexual assault for the second time in my life, but what about the other women at Clover?
“So?” asks Huff. “Why was your friend Sam at Clover?”
“That’s really not my business to discuss, Huff.”
He narrows his blue eyes.
“Stop it. Okay? Sam’s a good guy. Better than you in some ways.” The only problem is that I love Huff—it’s something I’m trying to get over. He’s not good for me. Sam says so.
“Why do you think that?” Huff asks with a short tone.
“Because you always put me last.” I hold up my palms. “Not complaining. Just stating the facts.” Something I learned from Sam. You can say the truth—good or bad—and not make it about bragging or getting sympathy. The truth is what it is.
“How can you say that?” he asks. “All I think about is you—what I can do to make sure nothing bad happens. Ensuring you get to live your dreams. I always put you first.”
Wrong. He only thinks he puts me first. Like a typical male, Huff gets an idea in his head of what’s right, but he refuses to listen to the people around him who are supposedly benefitting from his magnanimous decisions.
But here’s the truth: The night I was attacked less than a year ago by Blake, Huff did show up to stop him. For that, I’ll be forever grateful. But from that point on, it’s like Huff stopped hearing me. Really hearing me. All of a sudden, he was obsessed with being my savior.
Example: Later that night, Blake and his buddies nabbed us just outside the dorms. They drove us to these secluded woods, and Huff got it in his head to martyr himself: “Do what you want to me, Blake—I’ll even help you, but leave River alone.”
In Huff’s head, it was his way of saving me. But during the drive, one of Blake’s friends, who sat next to me in the backseat, was texting his girlfriend—a sorority sister of mine. He literally said that Blake just wanted to scare us. Blake was terrified I’d go to the police and press charges for the assault incident.
I wasn’t about to let Blake off for what he did, but when I tried to tell Huff, he ignored me and kept babbling to Blake about giving his life to save me. Huff was the one who gave Blake the idea to kill him. Huff convinced Blake he could get away with it.
That was when everything went sideways. Blake tied a huge rock to Huff’s neck and pushed him into that pond. The rest is history, but since then, Huff hasn’t stopped trying to rescue me and martyr himself.
I don’t need a hero, I need an equal, a man who sees me as his partner. But with Huff, he thinks that unless he makes the ultimate sacrifice, I won’t understand how much he cares.
Wrong. I know he cares. But killing himself isn’t the way to show it.