Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
If your girl dances when she eats, smile and let her. That’s the attitude she’s been giving you for the last forty-five minutes leaving her body.
-Words of wisdom from Winston to Keene
KEENE
I didn’t know how I knew something was wrong.
But by the time I got out of the courtroom—with the promise that the state of Florida wouldn’t be contacting me about my mother ever again—it was well past three.
I had just enough time to get on the plane and head back to Texas.
Only, when I got on the plane, it was to find Winston already on it, looking grim.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Something bad.” He looked haunted.
“What is it?” I repeated. “Is it Ande?”
He grimaced. “She’s fine. But this is about her.”
“What?” I asked, already reaching for my phone.
“When you were in court, Ande called your sisters. She found something at her sister’s house,” he said.
I pulled out my phone and called her, needing to hear her voice.
She answered on the first ring, and within seconds, I could tell that she’d been crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a sick sort of dread filling my gut.
“H-hey.” She sniffled. “Did Winston tell you?”
“Not yet,” I said. “What happened?”
“I found a journal.” She sniffled again. “It was written in code. Addison and I used to do that a lot. Talk in our own code. So, when I got to this journal written in it, I started reading it. Keene… my sister was hurt.”
“Hurt,” I said. “It wasn’t a suicide?”
She made a mewling sound, and I could hear a male voice in the background, then Tony’s voice say, “Shhhh.”
Instant relief hit me.
She wasn’t there alone.
“Tell me,” I urged.
She cried harder. “I can’t. I can’t say it again.”
The phone was jostled, and then Tony said in a really soft voice, “Have Winston tell you everything.”
I looked at Winston. “Tell me.”
So he did.
Giving me the condensed version.
Yet the condensed version still made me utterly sick.
“Ande started reading a diary that was written in code. Some language she and Addison started when they were around thirteen to hide stuff from their brothers. Well, she’s going through her sister’s books out of the boxes that came from Germany. There was a book in there, To Kill a Mockingbird. And long story short, Addison couldn’t stand that book, so it stood out. Ande opens it and finds a journal that was written in this code,” Winston said.
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where this was going.
The sniffle on the other end of the line was enough to break my heart, over and over again, until it was a pulverized mess.
What had she done to me?
“She starts reading this diary. And the first written entry is the day she met the boyfriend she was with for over two years. Though, Ande said she didn’t know that Addison had a boyfriend, let alone one who lasted that long,” Winston continued. “Well, they started dating, but Ande said that in the journal, she explains that she feels like this boyfriend is hiding something.”
“Does the boyfriend have a name?” I asked calmly.
“No,” Winston answered, knowing why I was asking that question. “Folsom’s working on that right now. As well as my guy.”
I didn’t need to hear the rest of the story. If this man was responsible for making Ande cry, then that was a reason enough for me to kill him with my bare hands.
I waited for him to continue, but still listened to the soft weeping on the other end of the line.
“Well, for two years, Addison dates this guy. And slowly you can see the light go out of her in these journal entries. She explains that she’s depressed. That things are happening that she has no control over. Just a bunch of bad feelings when it comes to this guy. But it’s only in the last six journal entries that you learn why she’s gotten so depressed. Addison Carter was sexually assaulted for two years. Forced to do things that are unimaginable. And when she outlived her purpose, the boyfriend kicked her to the curb. But only after finding out that she was pregnant. That’s when she was beaten so badly that she lost the baby. The very last entry says that she can’t live in a world like this anymore.”
I deflated.
There were no other words for it.
“Shit,” I said. “Baby…”
The sniffling came closer. Then Ande said, “I want to find this guy. And when I find him, I’m going to ruin his life.”
She was going to have to get in line.
“Baby,” I said, “you need to listen to me. Very carefully.”
The sniffling stopped.
I could tell I had her entire focus in that second.
“What?”
“You can’t tell your brothers.”
She inhaled deeply but didn’t argue. “Can you tell me why?”
I looked at the phone that I used for everyday stuff.
“I can’t tell you that,” I said. “But right now, they don’t need to know.”