Total pages in book: 260
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
“In bed.” I need to be completely horizontal or I won’t make it. Everything we talked about at the restaurant feels unfinished and painful. It’s like a chilled dread that simply won’t go away. Being on my feet one more second can’t happen, though.
We both take quick turns in the bathroom and when I come out Cill is standing at my bedroom door. “I’m not sleeping anywhere else tonight.”
That scares me, because it means he wants to keep talking too. And if we keep talking, I’m going to have to tell him all of the truth. There’s a part I left out. A part that still hurts to talk about.
* * *
Yeah, he yelled at me because I was the only person there.
Yeah, he was stupid and then angry and there was nothing we could do about it.
Yeah, we were all dealing with the loss of his dad.
Yeah, without his dad there, I wasn’t welcome at the club.
But there’s a piece he’s missing.
* * *
The bed welcomes me with its soft sheets and blankets I picked out with Lydia when I first moved in here. I burrow against the pillow while Cill climbs in next to me. He takes out his phone, and I see Reed’s name on the screen. Text messages. Cill glances over them and puts the phone facedown on the table.
I move in closer to his side and let him put his arm around me. He reaches over and turns off the light.
With the room dark and quiet, I thought I’d be able to give in to the weight of the day and pass out. Instead my thoughts race and apparently so do Cillian’s.
“Was it something specific I said that drove you away?”
Thump. My heart is heavy with every beat. “No … I just missed you and what we had before,” I begin, and I know it sounds awful as soon as the words are out of my mouth. “I didn’t mean that I was trying to replace you, or … or that you could be replaced. But I missed you. I was a wreck without you. I felt like there wasn’t a reason to keep going. I’d wake up in the morning and think about going back to sleep for the entire day.”
Cill rubs my back. “I thought about that too.”
I roll over under the sheets and scoot closer to him, resting my cheek against his chest. He’s quick to wrap an arm around me, holding me there. “There wasn’t really anyone else who understood. Reed was the only other person who missed you like I did. Well, almost as much. I couldn’t talk about it with anyone from Cavanaugh. I didn’t even want to be back there. I would have been totally alone without Lydia and Reed, and Lydia didn’t understand the way I was feeling.”
He doesn’t say anything. I know how this must sound. Me, complaining about how difficult things were for me when he was the one who truly suffered.
“I’m not comparing it,” I murmur. “I know it was hell for you. You never should have gone away.”
“It was worse than hell.” Cill must have so many things bottled up inside, but he doesn’t add anything else. I wait for a while to make sure.
“It was about missing you,” I explain, hating how stupid it sounds. “It was about trying to live with that emptiness. That’s all it was.”
His hand moves again on my back. “When did it happen?”
I wish I could just fall into the darkness with him and forget all of this ever happened. The sheets rustle as I maneuver under them, playing he won’t push me away. Denying the past won’t get rid of it. It won’t change what I did with Reed. All it will do is force me to spend more energy pretending that my life played out differently. I don’t want to do that.
“The first time was after your dad died.” Reed and I had both gone to the funeral. I felt like my dress was choking me. The service was filled with people from Cavanaugh Crest and all I wanted to do was escape. I didn’t want to keep the life I had. “The funeral was hard. Reed was devastated that you couldn’t be with us. He said it was fucked up that you couldn’t be there. He wouldn’t drop it.”
“How long after?”
“A few weeks.” I steel myself to continue. “Then you stopped answering my calls and when I went in, we had that fight.”
Anger spills out of him. “So you thought it would be better to fuck my best friend?” I begin to pull away, but Cill holds me tight. “Kat—I’m sorry. Fuck.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
“It already happened,” Cill says. I get the impression he’s repeated this to himself many times over the past four years. “It’s done. It hurts like hell, but it’s done.”