Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Frozen.
Uncertain, for the first time in a very long time, about what my next move is.
Chapter ten
Ephemeral
Back at his giant high-rise of all richness earlier this afternoon, Thorn didn’t look like he knew what his next move would be, but he’s clearly figured it out.
Illegally.
Or he might have done the finding out legally when he did that background check on me, but this is crazy. Paying off someone’s medical debt can’t be a thing, at least not without their consent. Can it? I mean, I suppose it could. All you have to be is rich, have friends in the right places, and make a few calls.
Check. And. Mate.
I still don’t know how to play chess, but this feels like game over. It feels like game over for all my feels. Because who just wipes out nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars of medical debt? I’d come to terms with the fact that it was just going to be hanging over my head for the rest of my life.
It all started when I realized today is the twenty-second of August, and the twenty-second of every month means I need to log into my bank account and make my usual two hundred and eighty-four dollar payment on a plan I’ll be paying until I’m a hundred and sixty-five. I literally did the math one day. Impossible? Not if I ever have any descendants. But other than Peach Lips, kids are not in my future plans.
I got into the app and went to Bill Payments, and that’s when I noticed that the regular, jaw-dropping, staggering amount was wrong. Instead of the balance being over four hundred and seventy thousand dollars, it was zero.
I panicked and called the bank. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a mistake. The lady on the other end of the phone literally asked me if I had a sugar daddy or if a Christmas miracle just happened to occur in mid-August. I couldn’t even get over my shock to get the nerve to hang up on her. Instead, she did that for me after wishing me a very snarky good day.
So that’s where I’m at now.
Peach Lips can always sense when something is wrong. I just got back from Thorn’s workplace an hour and a half ago, had a shower, and then came down here to make something to eat. I filled a bowl of tuna and salmon cat food for Peach Lips and then remembered my payment. I logged in, checked my history, and saw the zero balance. Non-sugar daddy. Zero. Balance.
Peach Lips, having just devoured the entire bowl of cat food, is now sprawled out on the kitchen floor, giving me her one green-eyed cat gaze.
“Meow?”
That’s code for, are you going to be okay, Mom? You look funny.
I am not fine. This is unacceptable. A hundred thousand dollars to charity? I don’t know where that came from, but it’s amazing. Paying off my massive debt to the hospital, however? That says something else. No one does that unless they want something. Does Thorn want something? The sugar daddy comment makes my face burn, but here I am, getting on the floor next to Peach Lips, ready to ugly cry because a massive debt has been lifted off my shoulders.
I don’t truly think Thorn is the kind of man to buy anyone, no matter what.
He could have just paid me off after the first Peach Lips incident, but he wanted to work for us to make things right. Even after he got kneed in the nuts, he wasn’t going to give up and just hand over the cash.
Peach Lips rolls over, giving me all of her belly. Unlike most cats, this isn’t her sneak attack zone. She loves to be petted there, especially after a big dinner.
“Nothing’s gone truly right for me for…uh…a very long time,” I tell her fuzzy belly. Her cat pouch is extra swingy, and it’s a different color than the rest of her body. I like that. I like how cats usually have wildly colored, non-matching primordial pouches.
Despite my efforts to get myself under control, I sniffle. Peach Lips meows at me, and that’s all it takes for me to bury my face in her fur and start with the ugly crying. Once the waterworks start, there’s no stopping it. I have to get my face off of Peach Lips before I soak her. She gets up, too, meowing at me and licking at my cheeks, chin, and nose. One lick hits me in the eyeball, which makes it water ten times more furiously. I hug her to me, taking care to be gentle with her, and let her give me the face exfoliating of straight sandpapery cat goodness.
The noise in the garage makes me gasp-hiccup. No one can get into this place unless they belong here, and Thorn does because, duh, it’s his house.