Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 112884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“I would help in whichever way I could,” I reply and he points at me. “Fine, I’ll call her and talk to her.”
He leans back and puts his arm across my leg. “That sounds like a solid plan. Now, tell me something that no one else knows about you.”
I put my elbow on the back of the couch and fist my hand to lay my head on it. “I don’t know if I can,” I answer him honestly. “I don’t want you to think any less of me.”
He puts his head back on the couch. “There is nothing, and I mean nothing, you could say that will make me think any less of you.” His words warm my soul, and for the first time in my life, I tell him two secrets no one has ever known. Secrets I’ve kept to myself out of fear. Secrets I vowed to never tell anyone else. But with him, he makes me want to bare my soul to him. “So tell me, Lexi, what’s your biggest secret?”
twenty-eight
Kirby
“There is nothing, and I mean nothing, you could say that will make me think any less of you.” I know things are different with her. I know I told myself I would stay away from her, but walking out and seeing her in my jersey, it just shifted it all over again. I can’t give up on her. I won’t give up on her. I’m going to be here and be patient as she weaves her way through whatever she needs to do. She’s the one for me, so I’m okay doing things in her timeframe. “So tell me, Lexi, what’s your biggest secret?”
I turn my head on the back of the couch, watching her. “Well, it’s kind of a two-part secret.” She holds up her hand with two fingers up. My arm that is draped over her leg moves to the side when she tucks her second leg on the couch. But I just bring it back on her. “Okay.” She takes a deep inhale. “First big secret. I found out Trent cheated on me when he came home one day and gave me a prescription to take.” I close my eyes, trying to keep myself calm. “He said they were vitamin C tablets to help fight off cold symptoms.” She laughs and then wipes the tear from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t believe him, obviously, and when I pushed it, he finally caved and told me that when he was in Vegas, he got drunk and slept with someone by accident. It was a one-time thing and he had no idea who she was or any of that.” I look up to the sky and hold my breath. “He fucking caught chlamydia and gave it to me.”
I sit up, not sure I can even breathe. “I went behind his back and went to my own gynecologist, and he confirmed I had chlamydia.” She puts her hand on my arm. “Then I did something I vowed to never tell another soul.”
“Your secrets are safe with me, Lexi,” I tell her in a whisper and she smiles through the tears.
“I know.” She tries to hold it together. “That day at the doctor’s office, I asked him to give me a prescription for birth control,” she shares in almost a whisper. “For the last nine years I’ve been taking birth control so I wouldn’t get pregnant.” She snorts. “The irony is, for the last year he hasn’t even been around to try. He sort of gave up after the second year. I was afraid he would want to go and talk to a fertility specialist, but I figured out that it would mean admitting maybe he was sterile, and he just couldn’t admit that to anyone.”
“Lexi,” I say her name and it pains me to say it, knowing she has been shielding herself from him for the past nine years.
“One time when he was away on who knows what, I asked him what he was doing.” She laughs. “And he said he was making himself a tea. Well, the idiot sent me a picture of the teakettle, but it was a stainless-steel one, and I saw him standing in front of it and there were girls there beside him naked, playing with his dick.”
“Okay.” I shake my head. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” I inform her and lean with my elbows on my knees, as my hands hang between my legs.
“Okay,” she says, sitting next to me, “now you have to tell me something that no one else knows.”
“Um, the biggest one is,” I say, looking over at her, “I found out my stepfather was dying. He had stage 4 mesothelioma and was in palliative care. My sister called me crying that he was dying. I flew up there that night, no one knew, and I went to his bedside and told him I was happy he was dying and I hoped he suffered to the bitter end. He died four hours later while I was on the plane back to my house. I showed up at the funeral and I was the last one to see him before they closed the casket, and I told him to rot in hell.”