Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Until the day I die, I'll wait for her.
She doesn't say anything. Not that I expected she would. Not that I deserve it.
The door closes behind me with a quiet click. It echoes in my ears, sounding for all the world like the final nail slamming into place in my coffin.
Chapter Eighteen
January
The front door closes behind Cade with a soft click. His words echo in my ears, playing over and over in distorted patterns that leave me shaking and gasping for breath that just won't come. My stomach roils and pitches.
I clamp my hand over my mouth and stumble blindly toward the bathroom. My knees hit the tile floor and I cling to the porcelain bowl, vomiting up everything I've eaten today. It all tastes like stomach bile and ashes.
Cade. God, Cade.
"No," I whimper, choking and gagging as the walls I erected years ago to keep myself alive come tumbling down. Memories tear through me, each hitting with the force of a bomb blast. They hurt. Oh God, they hurt.
Cade's big body engulfs mine, keeping me safe from something I can't even comprehend as shot after shot explodes outside. I know something is wrong. I can feel it in my bones, but I don't understand. My mind refuses to let me put it all together.
He jumps to his feet and glass falls all around him. The sheer terror on his face has my breath stalling in my lungs. He barks at me to stay inside and then runs out the front door as the roar of an engine sounds outside.
I stumble to my feet and follow behind him, scared and confused. I don't understand what's happening.
I turn toward my house, looking for Cade. My mind lurches, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing.
Titan's lying on the ground beside my mom, surrounded by garbage and pink wrapping paper. Neither of them is moving.
A whimper climbs up my throat when I see the blood pooling around Titan's big body.
I didn't understand what I was seeing until I heard Cade screaming. He sounded like someone was burning him alive as he yelled the word no over and over, begging for someone to help him. Not even as I stood there, staring at my mom and Titan on the ground, did I believe my world had just ended. Not until Cade fell to his knees beside Titan and I saw the blood all over his hands did the magnitude of the situation hit me.
My mom and Titan were dead, shot to death for reasons I'm only now coming to understand.
Cade told me he had so much blood on his hands that he'd never wash clean. Maybe I should have believed him when he said it. But I didn't.
I still don't believe it. Because what happened to my mom and Titan isn't his fault.
It's mine.
That's the painful truth I've been trying so desperately to bury for the last seven years. That's the painful voice in the dark that taunts me…the one I'm so afraid of that I've never even let myself think about that night. That's my secret.
It was my fault.
I knew something was wrong—seriously wrong with Titan—but I didn't want to face it, so I just pretended it wasn't happening. I pretended I didn't notice when he suddenly started bringing in more money, or when he'd be gone all night and then sleep all day. I pretended not to hear the whispers from my classmates about him when they thought I wasn't listening. I pretended not to see the text messages or hear the phone calls that constantly pulled him away when he did bother to come around for any length of time.
I ignored every sign, even when they were staring me right in the face…because I didn't want to accept the truth. I was so mad at Titan, so disappointed he was pushing me away that I watched him drown and never even tried to throw him a life-preserver. I just stood there and let it happen.
Cade thinks I pushed him away because I blamed him.
I pushed him away because I felt so damn guilty that I couldn't look at him without feeling like I was going to break into pieces. When I told him to leave, I wanted him to fight me. I wanted him to save me from the darkness clinging to my soul, the pain that threatened to annihilate me with every breath I took. I desperately wanted him to fix it for me and didn't think I deserved it. So I pushed him out the door.
Knowing the extent of what he's been suffering through alone kills me. He blames himself because I told him it was his fault. All he ever tried to do was protect me and keep together the only family he had left.
He's been punishing himself since that night so I wouldn't ever have to know the truth. He lived a lie for years so I never had to know that the real monster in the dark…is me.