Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Holy shit, Beau.” It feels weird saying his name like that. Like I care, I’m so sorry about all of it, and I know how he feels, even though I don’t. I can’t even imagine. But I do want to make it better because who wouldn’t? We don’t have to know each other well, have been friends for a long time, or be something more than that to have a spark of humanity flare up between us. “Don’t say things like that. You weren’t a curse. You were just a kid. Did you invent chemicals that cause cancer? Do you decide people’s DNA? Cancer has been a thing for centuries. Did you personally cause all of that, too?”
He blows out a harsh breath, but it’s not in relief. It’s in anger. Something crosses his face that is half shadow and half hatred, and I don’t know who he feels it for. Someone else? His birth parents? Himself? The world, in general, for being such a cruel bastard?
“I could have found them before. My birth parents. If I had, then I could have gotten the money sooner. Maybe, with better treatment, my parents would still be alive. It was all such a fucking waste. When I got the money, I paid the debts, took the rest, and invested. I kept doing that, not even caring if I lost it all. I didn’t actually even give a shit whether I lived or died at that point or how I did it. One morning, I was dodging creditors, so in debt that I knew I’d never dig myself out, and then the next, I woke up and had over a billion dollars. I don’t even know where the years went in between those two mornings, but they happened. They did happen, and I did a lot of shameful, stupid shit in that time.”
“Did you hurt people?” For some reason, that matters to me. When I say hurt, I mean truly hurt. The kind of hurt that people don’t recover from, either emotionally or physically.
“No. I just lived the kind of way my parents wouldn’t be proud of. I straightened it out once I realized it was the grief eating me whole. I nutted up and talked to a few therapists. I’m not ashamed to say they helped me a lot. The guilt, though? That’s something that can’t just be washed away. Grief turns into scars, but guilt stays with you like a sickness.”
He starts unbuttoning his shirt. What the hell? If he thinks we’re going to get naked now after confession time, he’s reading the room wrong. I mean, good lord, I’d be down for it, but I don’t think now’s the time. Plus, it’s not in the contract. I think nudity would have to be in there if it was going to happen. My heart nearly bursts out of my chest. I’m not going to be able to live through this. One second of those muscles and all that perfect skin and extra manliness, because, of course, he’s extra manly, is going to make me explode. Double plus, who unburdens themself like that and then just…strips naked? That would make sex a weapon, too. Or like a drug, taken to forget and feel better.
I know these are highly contentious, but when it comes to me, I happen to dislike weapons very much, as a rule, and drugs are a straight-up no for me.
He slips his arm out of the shirt, leaving it half on, and I let out a sigh when I understand. Right. It’s not about sex. This isn’t about nakedness at all. Duh. I’m the one who’s reading the room wrong. He points to the pump at the back of his arm. “I’m rich enough that I can afford things like this, so I barely even realize I have a disease at all, but it’s there.” With a grunt, he forces his arm back into the sleeve and neatly buttons the shirt back up. “That’s what the guilt is like. Manageable, but it will be with me forever.”
“Your parents knew.” I have to point that out. I’m sure he’s thought about this before. “They knew who your birth parents were. They would have looked them up. They would have known your birth parents had money. They could have done something horrible like contact them or blackmail them. They probably would have gotten the money then. But they chose not to.”
He blinks.
He looks like a trainwreck, like a storm and a gut punch hit him at the same time.
Okay, maybe he hasn’t thought about that.
He gets up, agitated, and walks around the barn, stirring up dust and straw.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper-yell, hating myself for using that word. Sorry. Ugh. Gross. “It’s not my business. I shouldn’t have said that. It was rude. Of course, they wouldn’t have done that. They seemed like the best people.”