Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“I’m not much of a cook,” Kelly says, “but I think the two of them need to talk.”
I nod. “Yeah, they do. But the problem is that this is all on me.”
“I know it seems that way,” she says. “Believe me, I’ve been there.”
Kelly’s life has been so much harder than mine ever was. I have no idea what her childhood was like, but spending a few years on that awful island where women were hunted and abused and raped… I can’t even imagine it. All my family ever asked me to do—other than marry Miles McAllister, which they let me out of—was fudge some parole records.
They even let me go when I asked them. They let me move here to Summer Creek.
But I’m still a member of the Bianchi family. And a rival family wants me.
That’s my theory, at least.
Why they think marrying their women off as if we were still living in Victorian times helps the families is beyond me. The women aren’t happy. The men aren’t happy. The children aren’t happy.
Though my parents did learn to be happy. My mom, Caroline, was married to my father when she was only eighteen. They hadn’t even met before the wedding day. It’s crazy that things like that happened in the United States of America in the twentieth century, but they did.
“I can’t even imagine what your life is like,” Kelly says.
I grab a cutting board and chop the stems off the broccoli. “I can’t imagine what yours is like either. I’m sure it was much worse.”
“Meeting Leif changed a lot of things for me. I sure fought it at first though.”
“Why?”
Kelly shrugs. “Just my lack of self-worth. I grew up without my father—he turned out to be a psychopath anyway—and my mother is a big mess as well. I won’t go into any details, but suffice it to say that I didn’t think I was worth anything. I didn’t think anyone like Leif could possibly fall in love with me. But he did. Flaws and all.”
“I don’t know anyone of us who doesn’t have flaws. Look at me, for instance. My family.”
“But you’re not your family, Savannah.”
I shake my head. “But don’t you see? In this kind of organization, you are your family. It’s a different set of rules. It’s a set of rules where they can take an eighteen-year-old girl and just give her to someone. Force her into marriage.”
“How can they do that? We have freedom here.”
“I know it doesn’t make any sense to you.” I chop the head of broccoli into florets. “It’s kind of like our own little monarchy. It’s ridiculous, I know. But when you’re in that unit, and you’re born into it, it’s all you know. Until you go to college, and you see how other people live. And you realize you’d do anything to get out. But you can’t. Your blood binds you. So I’m always going to be a target for a rival family. That’s what I think happened here.”
“It’s good for me to hear things like this,” Kelly says.
I look up as I’m placing the florets on a baking sheet. “What?”
Kelly covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh God, no. I don’t mean it like that. Forgive me. Ask Leif about how I was when he met me. Sometimes I speak before I think. All I mean is it helps me to remember that very few people in this world have it easy. Their circumstances may be completely different from mine, like yours are, but you have your own demons.”
I grab some olive oil and drizzle it over the broccoli. “I do. They’re pretty evil.”
“I hear that.”
I grind pepper over the vegetables. “I shouldn’t compare myself to your situation. You had it much worse than I ever did.”
“But that’s my point.” She sighs. “I don’t think you can assign value to it. Whether I had it worse or you had it easier. I think all we can say is that my life was what it was, and yours was what it was. And neither of them are without difficulties.” She frowns. “Oh, hell. I don’t know what I mean.”
I force a smile as I take the steaks out of the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap, and set them on a paper towel to drain.
“What can I do to help?”
“Get the potatoes out. You want mashed? Baked? French fried?”
“I say we just throw them in the microwave.”
“That works for me.
Kelly pulls four potatoes out of the five-pound bag, washes them in the sink, scrubs them, and then searches the drawers. When she finds a knife, she cuts a few tiny slits in each one for steam to escape.
Then she looks at me. “That was presumptuous of me. I should’ve asked you where the knives were.”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t have known. I don’t live here. Well, I guess I do, since my apartment is trashed and the whole place is a crime scene.” I sigh. “I don’t know which end is up anymore, Kelly. But I don’t live here. Falcon and I… I don’t really know what we are.”