Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“You are dead as far as the rest of the world is concerned.”
She snatches the paper from the desk, her eyes frantically skimming over the write-up detailing her grizzly death.
“My sister,” she breathes, and in that moment I feel sympathy for her.
“I’m sorry. It had to be done. I had no choice.”
She sits there staring at the paper, and I wait for her to fall to pieces. The more she reads, the heavier her breaths become. She frowns, her lips forming a thin line. “You didn’t even tell me what you were going to do!” she shouts at me.
“Why would I?” I shrug. “You didn’t have a say in the matter?”
“You know what? Fuck you, Jude!” She stands and throws the paper down on the desk.
She’s angry as a hornet, and she has every right to be. I wet my lips with the edge of my tongue and reach for the cigarettes on my desk. Just as I pull one from the pack, she swats it from my hand.
“Fuck you!” she growls again. Her stance widens as she balls her fists by her side. She looks like she may be about to punch me. “You have cost me everything, and now you’ve cost me my life.”
I shake my finger at her. “No, I saved your fucking life!” I’m growing agitated, not necessarily at her, but at the fact that I’ve had to damage her even further.
Her entire body is shaking. “You have taken everything from me, including my freedom.”
I pick up a loose cigarette from the floor and light it. I hold the smoke inside my lungs as I glare at her. Letting the thick cloud roll from my lips. My chest tightens, I feel sorry for her, I feel guilty, and those are not emotions I’m much accustomed to. I pull in another drag from the cigarette and wait for her to completely break, because it’s coming.
Her expression morphs instantly from despair to rage. Rage I can deal with, tears not so much.
“Why would you do this? Have you not taken enough from me? You’re a selfish bastard!” she screams at me.
I put the cigarette in the ashtray. I lean against the desk, bracing myself with my arms. She doesn’t get why I did this. “I told you—”
“I’m not interested in your bullshit excuses! You have ruined my life. My sister thinks I am dead because of you! This was all just to protect yourself, so do me a favour and stop with the fucking lies.”
“If I hadn’t you would have ended up dead, and if you think what I’m capable of is fucking deranged, you don’t want to know what Joe would do to you! If you want to blame anyone, blame that shit-poor excuse of a man who handed you over to criminals in the first place. This is all his fucking fault. He ruined your life!” I shout. ”And he made a fucking mess of mine.”
“Fuck. You!” she screams, swinging her arm back.
Her palm hits the side of my face with a loud clap, and my head slams to the side. Heat floods my cheek where she struck me, stinging like a motherfucker. I inhale as I close my eyes, trying to breathe. I will fucking take it this once.
“Tor,” I growl in warning; my jaw tightens, my fists clench.
“How has this messed up your fucking life? You’re not a dead girl walking!” She grabs the ashtray from the desk and chucks it at the wall. Soot flies everywhere. We’ve skipped the crying and gone straight to irrational, apparently.
She stomps across the room. “You don’t have to think of your sister crying over your fucking closed casket.” She rips the painting off the wall, and smashes the frame over the desk. I jump to the side of the room as she hurls the mangled frame at me. “You haven’t just lost the career you worked eight fucking years for!” She takes the crystal decanter of whiskey and throws it against the wall.
“And you don’t have a foot long scar down your body, and a slit throat! I fucking hate you!” she screams manically, throwing the telephone at me.
This is how I would react, not how I expected her to react. I expected her to fall into a sobbing heap on the floor, not destroy my fucking house. I stand to the side of the room, lighting another smoke as I lean against the wall and watch her. If this is what she needs to come to term with things, so fucking be it. Eventually, she’s run out of things to break and grabs the cushions from the sofa, giving them an exaggerated throw in my direction.
There’s nothing left to throw. She’s standing in the middle of utter destruction, chest heaving and tears pouring down her face. Her knees buckle and she falls to the floor, sobbing. She looks so small and broken, and it pulls at something inside me that I thought had long ago been lost. Fuck, I should do something. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what to do here. I haven’t done anything aside from fuck a woman in the past ten years.