Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
“Sure.” The word tasted like ash. Hopefully, she had all the ingredients, so she wouldn’t have to run to the store and make him wait for his snack.
He didn’t like to wait.
He didn’t like so many things.
He really was a good-looking guy, with deep blue eyes, light brown hair, and a muscular physique that women drooled over. On his most recent barber trip, he’d cut his hair shorter than she preferred. Jase liked his hair buzzed, whereas it had been longer when they’d met. Back then, in the beginning of their relationship, she’d loved running her fingers through the soft strands. Back when, for a short time, he’d made her feel special and safe. When he’d told her she was pretty, intelligent, and precisely what he wanted in a girlfriend.
How stupid she’d been to fall for his lip service.
As she turned to preheat the oven, Jase caught her arm and spun her back to face him with a rough tug. Her pulse spiked. The movement was so fast her brain didn’t have time to catch up.
“Everything okay?” she asked, staring up at him. He had eight inches on the five-foot-three stature she’d inherited from her mom. For one second, she thought she might get a kind word. A thank you for retrieving the beer and cooking for his dickhead friends. Maybe it was nice to know she wasn’t so completely jaded that she automatically expected something hateful to fall from his lips, but thinking positively only made the reality of his cutting comments sting more.
“Cover that shit up.”
She blinked. “What?”
He huffed and rolled his eyes, giving her a none-too-gentle shake. “Your face. Go put some goddamn makeup on. Fuck’s sake, Beth, you tryna make me look bad in front of my friends?”
Her stomach soured as her hand went to her cheek, fingers brushing the tender spot his palm had already found once today. “What? N-no, of course not. I didn’t have anywhere to go today, so I didn’t bother with makeup. And I had no idea the guys were coming over. I’m s-sorry.”
She’d forever hate the way her voice wavered. She used to be the girl who flipped off Gator when he teased her about a bad haircut and told him his beard looked like a ferret had died on his face. The girl who’d once called Screw an ‘overprotective Neanderthal’ to his face and made everyone at the table laugh, including him.
Where had that girl gone?
Jason shoved her away with a grunt of disgust. “Well, get moving. They’ll be here soon, and I’m fucking hungry.”
As she skittered past him, he cracked her on the ass with an open palm. It hurt, and she bit her lip to keep from yelping, though she couldn’t hide the way her body reacted. Her muscles automatically tensed for another hit.
This wasn’t a playful light ass smack or a lead-in to a consensual sexy spanking, but a warning.
Stay in line tonight or else.
She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to snap at him. He wouldn’t appreciate it if she fired back or flipped him off like she wanted.
And there it was.
She’d become conditioned to act and react as he wanted. Trained, like one of the dogs she groomed at work.
And she hated it.
She hated him.
She hated living like this.
She hated herself.
But most of all, she hated that she’d walked away from something good because she’d been too young and stupid to recognize it. She’d had everything, including love, safety, people who would die for her, and she’d thrown it away like it wasn’t enough. Like she deserved better. Like better even existed.
And look what she’d found instead.
The average woman went back to her abuser seven times before leaving.
Seven times.
She could break the cycle. She could come in below the average. She could tell him to fuck off and walk out of the apartment forever. She could make everyone she knew proud and dig into the strength she’d always thought she possessed.
She could…
Go home.
For one second, she let herself imagine it. Her hand on the front door. The click of the lock. The night air on her face as she walked to her car in her pajamas with nothing but her keys and her phone. Driving until Jason was a speck in her rearview mirror. Driving until she couldn’t smell Irish Spring anymore.
So why did she walk back into the bathroom and retrieve her makeup bag?
Why did she feel paralyzed by her own life?
Why, with her heart pounding and palms sweating, did staying feel easier than leaving?
Maybe because leaving meant admitting she’d failed. Maybe because starting over felt like climbing a mountain with broken legs. Maybe because some sick, twisted part of her still hoped tomorrow would be different, and that the Jason she’d fallen for would come back, and this version would disappear like a bad dream.