Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I didn’t bother to run.
Couldn’t.
There was nowhere to go.
I had no money.
No way to keep a roof over my and my daughter’s head.
The blow came.
I knew it was coming, and still wasn’t prepared for it.
The back of his hand met my face, right under my eye, and made contact so hard that my head spun. I fell to the ground, pain bursting to life as I tried and failed to clear my blurry eye.
“You have responsibilities, Merriam,” he hissed.
I did.
I knew I did.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” I lied.
I wasn’t sorry.
If I could poison his food and kill him, I’d still manage to screw myself.
The only thing that was keeping a roof over our heads was my dad’s tenacity in making a failing candy business work, and his refusal to give up.
That was, after all, why he’d ruined my life.
He thought that I could help him make it work.
I couldn’t.
There was no saving the business.
But he refused to see that and was taking me down with him.
“Where is your daughter?” he asked calmly.
I hated him.
I hated him so much.
“She’s at Mrs. Rawls,” I answered. “Keeping her company for the night.”
“You mean, watching her so you can go waste our hard-earned money on stupid shit you don’t need,” he said.
I hadn’t wasted any money.
I didn’t have any money.
The only thing that I had was what the government gave me. I had money on my food stamps card. I had free healthcare for Anleigh.
And that was it.
He didn’t give me money to live.
I bought the groceries for the house.
I cooked.
I worked as many hours as necessary.
What I didn’t do is get a paycheck with money to burn.
The money I’d gotten to pay for tonight was from Mrs. Rawls.
The only time I ever got to go out to eat was when Gisela took me out.
“I didn’t waste any money, I promise,” I said.
He scoffed. “Go get your daughter and go to bed.”
Never Anleigh.
He’d never called her by her name before.
He wasn’t the nice grandpa that you saw all over the internet.
Hell, he’d never even held her.
Anleigh seemed to instinctively know to stay away from him, too.
Not once had she tried to go to him.
“Okay,” I said as I stood up.
If I went fast, the redness of my face wouldn’t be as noticeable as it would if I gave my face time to settle in with the bruising.
Rushing out of the house, I ignored the bite of cold that assaulted me—yet another reminder that I needed a damn coat, and so did Anleigh—and hauled ass to Mrs. Rawls’s door.
Mrs. Rawls was a rather new addition to our neighborhood.
Her husband had died a couple of years ago, and the house she’d been living in had been too hard for her to keep up. So her grandkids had found her a new place that was closer to the eldest granddaughter. A granddaughter that lived three houses down and had a daughter Anleigh’s age.
I loved all of them, but had to keep my distance to ensure that they didn’t cotton on to my reality.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have even taken Mrs. Rawls up on her offer to watch Anleigh had she not caught me arguing that I ‘didn’t have a babysitter’ with Gisela in the driveway earlier.
Mrs. Rawls opened the door before I could reach it to knock and smiled at me.
She was a rather plump woman with a ready smile, rosy cheeks, and the most calming presence that just made you want to sink into her arms.
This was the kind of grandparent that Anleigh deserved.
Not one like my father, who was a disgrace to male kind.
“You’re back early,” she said with a smile. “Missed your baby, did ya?”
I always missed my baby.
The hours and hours that I had to work at the candy shop made me hate myself.
I wanted to spend some time with Anleigh, but my father required me at the store for a solid eight hours a day, every day. On the days that daycare wasn’t available, I got to bring her to work with me. But even then, Dad required her to stay in the back, unseen.
“I did,” I said. “She’s my little sidekick, and I don’t know how to function without her.”
Mrs. Rawls stepped back and opened her door wide. “Get on in here. Do you want some cake?”
I knew I shouldn’t.
Dad would only want to hit me all over again if I took too long to come back.
But I did it anyway.
Glancing at my daughter that was asleep on the couch, not a worry in the world, I headed to the small kitchen and took a seat.
“Chocolate cake cures the soul,” she said.
I eyed the chocolate cake and said, “I’ll take the whole thing.”
Mrs. Rawls laughed.
If only she knew I wasn’t joking.
My soul was battered and bruised. It might take the whole thing to fix it.