Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“You’re going to tell me exactly what in the hell is going on the moment you get back, right, Haggard?” I called out.
Haggard hesitated as he started to leave the house, his eyes catching mine. “I’ll tell you everything you never wanted to know.” He winked, bent and picked up the condom, then left. “Love you.”
“Dude, you have a MILF as a mother now, Boston,” one of the boys whispered. “How cool is that?”
A feeling of euphoria stole over me at the way Haggard had left. The way he made sure that I was okay before he pulled away and agreed to go.
The sad thing was, that euphoric feeling of happiness and rightness fled the moment that Haggard’s tailpipes could no longer be heard.
Why?
Because I received a text from my father.
Dad: I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m broken, Sophia. I love you, and I’m sorry for doing this to you. I will do it at the gym, and not at home, so you don’t have to worry about that.
My stomach was literally in knots as I tried to calm myself down, knowing that my dad’s headspace wasn’t right.
As I walked up to Boston to tell him what I was doing and where I was going, his friend came back, causing a flurry of activity.
I chose to leave instead of address it.
And what a mistake that was.
CHAPTER 22
I solemnly swear a lot.
-Text from Sophia to Haggard
SOPHIA
I don’t know what I expected to find when I walked into the gym, but my dad beating the absolute hell out of a weight bag wasn’t it.
I frowned hard, then the anger started to rise.
I’d spent the entire fifteen-minute trip all the way over here thinking about what I would find.
Fifteen minutes of time that I would never, ever be able to get out of my mind.
I’d imagined every which way he could kill himself at the gym.
I’d imagined him hanging from a fucking weight rig by his neck. I’d imagined him with his head blown apart, decorating the back wall. I’d imagined him in the gym itself, truck running, while he tried to kill himself using the exhaust.
Then, the worst image in my head was how he’d be if he’d failed all of those attempts. What would he be like with a gunshot wound to the face? How would he live if he had a broken neck? Brain damage? God, the possibilities of how it could get worse were endless.
Then I walk in and find him punching a fucking heavy bag?
All the while he sends me that text?
After he’d been ignoring me for the last month?
Yeah, needless to say, I wasn’t very proud of the way I spoke to him in the next second.
“You fucking spineless shit!” I yelled out. “How the hell are you going to send me that kind of text, then go and punch a punching bag while you scared the absolute crap out of me?”
My dad caught the swinging bag and turned, barely managing to stay on his feet after the bag plowed back into him due to the momentum and it slipping through his fingers.
“Sophia…” he hesitated. “What are you doing here?”
I got even more mad.
“What am I doing here?” I screeched, throwing my hands up. “I’m here because you sent me a text telling me you were about to kill yourself at the gym!”
“Sophia…”
The next few minutes were a blur.
One moment, I was standing on my own two feet, and the next I was on my knees, my hand going to the back of my head where something had struck me.
“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” I heard a familiar voice say from behind me. “I may have helped myself to your father’s phone while looking around your house and sent you a text message. Royce, cuff her and drag her into the back room while I deal with her father. Shouldn’t be too hard. He’s drunk off his ass again.”
I nearly cried.
I would have had I not been focusing on not throwing up.
But then I felt the tears leaking down my cheeks, and I realized I was already crying.
Oh, and my brain wasn’t working correctly.
It was throbbing so hard that I had to think about what I was going to do before I did it.
But when I tried to stand up, a man’s hands roughly took me up in his arms and all but carried me to the back room, where there were pieces of equipment that needed to be fixed. That, and it was a spare room in the back of the lot that barely anyone used, let alone thought about.
So why did Andrew know where it was?
I gave him a tour, but not of this…
My ass was shoved down into a chair, and then I was being tied to the back of the chair using a zip tie.