Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Turning to my other side, I look at the window. The shade’s open as the daylight streams into the room. My body feels like it’s been run over with a Mack truck, front and back. I blink a couple of times, not looking anywhere else but the window, until I take a deep inhale and throw the covers off me and get out of bed. The cool air makes me shiver as I reach for the long sweater lying across the bottom of the bed. Wrapping it around myself, I move to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.
Walking over to the pantry cupboard, I see my brother at least went out to get things to make coffee. Setting it up to brew myself a pot of coffee, before pouring myself a cup, I pick it up and walk over to the back door, pulling it open and then pushing through the storm door before standing on the back deck. The swing chair my father put up for me when I inherited this place ten years ago sways softly with the warm breeze. Instead of walking over and sitting in the swing, I walk to the steps and sit on the top one and look out into the field. The sounds of birds chirping fill the morning air as I take a sip of my hot black coffee. My mind goes back to last night and coming face-to-face with the one person I never wanted to see again. Was it irony or maybe it was karma? Whatever it was, I saw that Charlie had not changed in six years.
I mean, his appearance changed for sure. He was always handsome and the hate definitely didn’t dimmish that. The words from the last conversation we had, some all those years ago, fill my head. It was also the last night I stayed in this house, after that, I moved in with my father, right before I left town.
“You fucking knew he was drunk!” he roared in my face; his face filled with anguish and hatred. His eyes were filled with rage. It was also one o’clock in the morning when he knocked on my door, scaring the ever-loving fuck out of me. “You did this.” His face advanced to mine. “You could have stopped him.”
“I tried,” I finally said, “I tried to get him to give me the keys.”
“You didn’t try hard enough.” His words sliced through me like little shards of glass getting under your skin. “It should be you in that grave, rotting in hell with him.” That was the last thing he said to me before he turned and stumbled into the forest like a thief in the night. My legs gave out from under me, and I sat there rocking side to side until daylight.
I take a sip of the coffee, closing my eyes and blinking the last tear away. I knew coming back home would bring back all of this. I was just hoping I would be strong enough for it.
I finish the cup of coffee before getting up and moving back inside where my phone is ringing. I place the cup in the sink, not rushing to the phone. The phone stops ringing as I walk back to the bedroom. Picking it up, I see it’s my brother.
I’m about to call him back when he sends me a text:
Brady: Just checking in. Call me when you’re up.
I put the phone on speaker, calling him back. “Hey,” he says when he answers the phone, “did I wake you?”
“Nope,” I reply, picking up the pillows and tossing them to the foot of the bed as I make it. “I was up and at ’em.”
“You got in so late last night,” he reminds me, “you should have slept in.”
“I’m fine,” I assure him, avoiding telling him I ran into Charlie. He has enough on his mind with Dad. He doesn’t need to worry about me and how I’m doing. “I was planning on getting in the shower and picking up some donuts and surprising Dad.”
“What time do you think that is going to happen?” he asks me. “Because he’s going to want to kick my ass, and I’d rather be far away from him when you do this.”
I laugh at him. “In about an hour. Is he still at the hospital?”
It’s Brady’s turn to laugh. “You think that stubborn man would stay in the hospital if he didn’t need to be there? His words to the nurse were, ‘I can do all this lying around in my own damn house.’” I grab the pillows, putting them back up to the headboard.
“Sounds about right,” I say, “he’ll probably kick my ass for being here.”
“Well, there is more stuff we need to talk about,” he says, and I sit down. “How about you swing by the bar when you’re done?”