Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
“Oh, Tuck. All those could haves will do is torture you.”
“Good. Don’t I deserve that?”
“I don’t think so. But regardless of my opinion, you did your time. You paid the price that wasn’t even yours to pay.”
“There is no adequate price for that, Em. Not one set by a judge anyway. Abel’s kid is six years old now, and he doesn’t have a dad either. I’ll regret what I didn’t do that day forever.” That moment. The one where I failed. “And rightly so. I might have been the one to prevent his death, and I didn’t.”
“So you took the blame, not for him, because you couldn’t do that, but with him. You gave his girlfriend and son someone else to focus their anger on instead of only him.”
Her voicing that idea hit home even if I’d never exactly put it into words for myself. But yes, it’d brought me some kind of relief to know I could do something, no matter how small, in the aftermath of my mistake. But before I could comment, a voice came through what sounded like a bullhorn, announcing that the generator and lights were going to be shut off in twenty minutes. “I guess that’s a not-so-subtle hint to go to bed.”
I smiled. “I think you’re right.”
She studied me for a minute. “Thank you for telling me what happened.”
Our gazes held. And even though it had been hard to put the night Abel died to words for the first time, and difficult to dredge up all those emotions, I also felt unexpectedly glad that I’d not only told the story but told it to Emily. “Thank you for listening.”
She placed her palm over my knuckles and laced our fingers together. And even when we parted a few minutes later, I swore I could still feel her hand in mine.
thirty
Emily
Day Seven
In the morning, Charlie was gone. I wasn’t exactly surprised, and maybe I was even a little relieved that I’d no longer have to travel with someone I’d lost all respect for. But I was a little worried for him. There was no future for us as a couple or anything more, and I was fully aware of all his shortcomings—to put it mildly—but Charlie was no match for the state of society right now.
He’d made his choice, however. And perhaps whatever happened to him was well deserved. Hosea told me he’d seen him leaving that morning with the young woman who apparently had access to a usable vehicle—and the desire to head west with a stranded movie star.
Tuck emerged, wearing new clothes and sporting a freshly shaven face, his hair slicked back. And I didn’t want to swoon like a schoolgirl, but I did. No one could affect me like him, no one ever had. And I suddenly felt vulnerable to it, a twist of fear funneling through me. Because until now—and despite Charlie—I’d used the judgment of what I’d deemed Tuck’s flawed character as a shield against my attraction. I no longer had that defense, flimsy though it had become the more time I spent with him. And I had to admit my attraction didn’t stop at his chiseled jaw, or his perfectly formed features. It went deeper than that. He just did something to me that no one else ever had. And I didn’t know how to describe it. I certainly didn’t know how to ignore it. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to fight it anymore. Hence the fear.
But I didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on all that anyway. Tuck and I had far bigger fish to fry and the continuation of our journey home in front of us.
“Morning,” I said with a smile.
He looked me over, smiling back. “Feels good to clean up, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll never take shampoo for granted again,” I said. The women’s barracks had a hose running off the back of the building and an array of hair products and soaps on a ledge. I’d stepped behind the wooden partition that provided privacy and taken full advantage of them, shivering in the cold morning air but not caring a whit. Then I’d pulled on the clean clothes given to me and almost cried at the absolute joy of feeling clean again.
“Charlie’s gone,” I told him. Headed west with a nineteen-year-old fangirl in her daddy’s car.
“I figured,” Tuck said. “So is the gun. I left it in my backpack in the locker when I was showering and shaving. He must have taken it then.”
My mouth dropped along with my heart. “What?” That rat! Our weapon was gone? Our protection? And if so, of course it was Charlie—only the three of us had the combination to the locker Hosea had given us to store our things. I closed my eyes for several moments. When I looked back at Tuck, he appeared grim but not angry. “You’re not mad?” I asked, surprise clear in my voice.