Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
I’m standing in front of their house like I was nine years ago, ready to walk up the cement pathway, climb those steps and knock on the door. While I’ve known Callie and the Thornes for a few years now, I’ve never been inside their childhood home. We usually meet up at the house where Callie lives with Reed and their babies. In fact, that’s where I wanted to meet Callie in the first place, but when I called her a couple of hours ago and told her I had something to talk to her and her brothers about, she told me to come here. To their childhood home. Apparently they’re having some sort of a family night and everyone’s already gathered here.
So I guess it’s natural for me to think about that night from all those years ago, when I first showed up here. Unlike that night, it’s a decent hour and not midnight, and I can see lights streaming through the windows. The house mostly looks the same. Same brick façade and slanting roof, but there are differences. The yard looks mowed. The steps aren’t rickety-looking anymore. I think the front door has been recently painted as well. It looks like someone is taking care of this house, trying to bring it back to life.
And I think I know who.
The man who took care of me, who wouldn’t want me to be here. He wouldn’t want me to be walking up to the steps of his house, let alone climbing them and knocking at the door. But I do it anyway. Because I’m here not for myself, but for my sister. And what my mother had said was right: a mother has to make sacrifices, and while I’m not Snow’s mother, I’m as close to one as I can get.
It doesn’t take more than five seconds for the door to snap open after I’ve knocked. It’s Tempest. Even though I told her she didn’t need to help me, she still told me that she’d be here for me no matter what.
I guess this is her way. Because as soon as she opens the door, she wraps me into a tight hug. I hug her back because I need it. I need some extra strength, even though I probably don’t deserve it right now, after how I’ve fucked up by missing the signs with my sister, and well, all the lying and hiding.
“Hey,” she whispers.
“Hey,” I whisper back.
She breaks the hug and tells me, “I didn’t tell anyone anything.”
I swallow. “Okay, thanks.”
She watches me with concern. “Are you sure? I can help you. Please let me help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
My eyes sting so badly that I have to take a moment to myself. But I remind myself once again that falling apart right now is not an option. I’ll fall apart later, later later, once I get what I came here for. “No, it’s okay. I can do this. I have to do this.”
Tempest looks at me for a second before closing her eyes and mumbling, “God, you’re so stubborn.” Then, opening her eyes, “I’m still going to hold your hand though. As we walk to the dining room where everyone is, okay?”
I let out a small chuckle, because she’s the very best friend a girl could ask for and that somehow gives me the strength I need to enter the house that I’ve thought about a million times ever since I came to know about it when I was twelve.
She grabs my hand and pulls me through the living room, where I spy a ton of leather couches and a giant bookshelf from the corner of my eyes, and into a hallway. There are stairs at the mouth of it and then several doors on either side that I think lead to bedrooms. If I was here under different circumstances, I’d be soaking everything up, trying to solve mysteries and make conclusions about my stepfamily. But not right now. Right now, it’s all I can do to keep walking.
Abruptly we come to a halt, just shy of where the hallway seems to be opening up into a larger, open space, and Tempest turns to me. “Well, do you want me to tell you about, you know, other things? He’s been living here. In the house, for the past month, and I could tell you—”
“It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand. “I don’t want to know.”
First, because I already know he lives here. He told me the night he crashed my date weeks ago and I know he’s here because of me. But I can’t tell Tempest or anyone that. About what happened between us, both three weeks ago and before that. While I’m here to reveal my secrets, this is one secret that will always stay buried. Not only because he happens to be my best friend’s brother on top of being my stepbrother but also because I don’t want to share it. I’m too possessive over it, them, the moments, the memories. I’m too possessive over all the things he made me feel: the thrill, the shivers, the fear, the anger. Lust and love and safety. So I don’t want anyone else to have those things but me.