Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
At home, I eat a cheese stick and fry up a bag of frozen pierogi, only to eat two and toss the rest in the garbage. I finish off my second glass of wine and draw a hot bath. My third is three-quarters of the way done by the time the tub fills, and I might as well chug the rest back so I can slip into the tub with a nice full glass, right? So that’s what I do. I’m feeling pretty good now. My neck is relaxed, my mind slows down, and I almost feel calm again. Alcohol is a great therapist like that.
Before I climb into the tub, I tie up my hair, light a candle, and call up some soft jazz on my phone. It’s nice. Feels serene. So I keep drinking, sink into the warm water, and let it take away all my troubles. But then my cell chimes with an alert. And I’m the type of person who needs to know what I’m missing. Even when I’m about to finish my fourth glass of wine. So I swipe into my phone to see what the alert was for and find a text message from Robert. Robert, who doesn’t ghost me. Robert, who takes me to nice dinners and is a gentleman, even when I go home with him, because he knows I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
It’s laughable, really.
I’m not ready for sex with a man who is a great catch, one who kisses me lovingly and seems completely into me. But I’m ready for breath-play and banging a patient on my desk.
I hold my phone in the air, high above my head, and slip down under the water, immersing the hair I tied up and hadn’t been planning on getting wet. I count the seconds as I hold my breath. Fifteen. Then thirty. Sixty. When I hit ninety, I feel pressure in my head. Yet I push to a hundred and five. Ten more seconds tick by, and I burst out of the water with a big splash, panting. Water sloshes over the sides of the tub.
The candle goes out.
And now my hair needs to be blow-dried.
Also, my glass is empty again.
So it’s time to get out.
I stumble out of the tub, wrap myself in a towel, and look down at the bathroom mat. I’ve never sat on it. It looks comfy. So I use the wall as my support to slide down to the ground, then grab my phone again.
Maybe Robert is too nice a guy for me.
Maybe I’m built like Rebecca now. Maybe the accident changed me. I need someone a little rough around the edges. Being punished seems fitting.
I can’t picture Robert holding me down. Yanking my hair. He’s probably gentle and kind in bed. Warm and caring.
With that thought, I call up the dating app. I’ve avoided it lately. No use finding a third man when I can’t figure out what the hell is going on with the two I have. Not that I have Gabriel. But whatever.
I scroll for a while, randomly swiping right on any guy who looks a little rougher—guys with tattoos, guys with beady eyes. Motorcycle? Perfect! And then I go to the Columbia website to look at Gabriel’s picture. He’s even more handsome in person. I stare at his smiling face, wondering what he’s doing right this minute. But I also remember all the young blondes he’s spent time with.
My heart sinks. He’s probably having dinner with a hot, young one right now. Wherever he is. I’m not sure if that thought makes me queasy or maybe it’s the four glasses of wine on a mostly empty stomach. But I can’t sit upright anymore. So I lie down on the nice rug I’ve never sat on and pull the towel around me.
I’ll just shut my eyes for a few minutes. Then I’ll get up and go to bed. I need to brush my teeth and plug my phone into the charger, too.
And that’s the last thought I remember when I wake up the next morning—with grimy breath, a dead cell phone, an imprint of the nice bathroom rug on the side of my face, and a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that something bad is going to happen.
CHAPTER 31 Now
Another week.
Another trip to the liquor store last night, because I’ve downed both of those bottles. This time, I buy a half dozen, with the excuse, “Might as well—half a dozen means I get a discount!”
Now I’m in my office, staring at my phone, the dating app pulled up. There’s a new message from Robert, but I can’t bring myself to open it.
“New schedules,” Sarah croons, swinging in the door. She’s her usual cheerful self, and I smile, try to appear normal for her.