Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
I let out a laugh, a sigh, and then shook my head with my eyes glossing over. “I feel like I woke up in the Twilight Zone.”
Mom was patient while I filled her in on everything, starting with the house showing and dinner. I told her about the deal he’d proposed after he’d seen the bruises on my arm, told her about shopping and the park with Sebastian and everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours.
Well — not everything.
But by the time I finished speaking, her gaze had softened, and she was leaning in in the way that told me if I was there with her, she’d have a hand on my arm squeezing gently.
I looked a lot like her — same brown eyes, same button nose, same tired smile.
“It sounds like he’s grown up quite a bit.”
I nodded, but then frowned. “That’s what I don’t understand, Mom. Kyle has been so… strange.” I shook my head. “When we first reconnected, it was like he was mad at me, like it was somehow me who was the bad guy in our situation. That changed after he saw what Marshall had done to me.”
“I want to walk right down the road and give him a piece of my mind for that.”
“You know it wouldn’t do any good,” I said on a sigh. “And you also know I can take care of myself. I have a plan.”
Mom’s mouth twisted to the side. She and Daddy had offered several times to use their savings and give Sebastian and me a fresh start somewhere new.
But I wanted to do this on my own.
I needed to save myself.
“I asked him on the plane yesterday why he left,” I said, my voice a whisper now. “And he said he didn’t have a choice.”
My eyes found Mom’s, and though my hands were shaking, I knew I couldn’t back out now.
“Mom… what happened at the party that night?”
Her face went white when I asked.
Everyone in our little suburbs knew about that party. Everyone knew something had happened, though the parents were tight-lipped about what exactly. All I knew was that come the following weekend, Kyle and his parents were gone. They’d moved.
Or had they been run out of town?
“That’s an old story that I don’t think we need to dredge up,” she said.
“Please.”
Mom looked away from me, tucking her hair behind her ear. “No one even wanted to go to that party, if I’m being frank,” she started. “The Robbins liked to think they ran that town, and because of the money they had, I guess they did in a way. They helped a lot with the church and the PTA. They were the first to step up and donate whenever we had a cause. But… Lord, they were a pain to be around. Lynette had the backbone of a salamander, and Michael…”
She looked at me in the way that said she didn’t need to finish that sentence — and she really didn’t. I knew exactly the kind of man Michael was. He was well respected in the community, a leader at the law firm he was a partner at — the one my father worked at with him — and a seemingly stand-up guy.
But he was also a hot-tempered man with a short fuse and a bad drinking habit.
He was like Marshall.
I shivered a bit, nodding for Mom to go on.
“The first bit of the party was fine. The food was great, drinks were flowing. But we were all kind of biding our time until it felt like we’d stayed long enough to make an excuse to leave. The kids left around eleven — some of them going to a sleepover while others headed home or out to meet up with their friends. Kyle was the only one who stayed.”
I swallowed.
He’d asked me to be there, but I hadn’t been ready to face him. I hadn’t been ready to tell him I was pregnant.
And I couldn’t be around him and pretend I was fine.
I’d tried to be normal around him that week at school, but he knew something was off. He kept begging me to talk to him, but I needed time to process. I needed to figure out what I wanted, what I would say when the time came.
“About an hour later, your father and I decided to leave. We went to say goodnight to Michael and Lynette.” Her eyes lost focus. “Michael was drunk — which was par for the course. We tried to laugh it off when he said we were losers for leaving so early. But then he got mouthy with your father, something about work.” She went a bit green then. “He seemed to be insinuating that your father was having an affair with someone at the office.”
“He would never!”
“I know,” she said, holding up a hand. “I knew then, too. But Michael thought it was hilarious. Your father shoved him a bit, which made Michael laugh, and then he grabbed my ass and said a crude comment about how if I were his wife, he’d be too busy to stray.”