Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
“You...you r-really believe that?” I hate how my voice is shaking.
“I do.”
But I just can’t help it.
Because what she’s saying...
“Joy and those women...they were so happy.”
Oh God, I’m already crying.
And the more I think about Joy and all those other women, that’s when it becomes clear—
What’s making me cry these stupid tears is seeing all of them, knowing that they’re all mothers, and that they’re good.
That there are good mothers in this world still, but mine isn’t one of them, and I hate how that’s making me want to cry and rage because it feels so, so unfair.
I turn to Icelle, and her face...makes me laugh. It’s still that kind of face. Beautiful, blank, and bitchy with a capital B. But those blue eyes of hers, I see what Icelle wants to say—
It’s okay to hope.
It’s okay to believe there are good people, too.
It’s okay even if it means sometimes, we get it wrong, and sometimes that means getting hurt all over again.
Icelle slowly nods.
It’s okay, her eyes say.
My mom sucks, too.
Well, okay, I made that one up.
What her eyes are saying is much nicer (it goes along the lines of ‘my mom isn’t good either, and it’s fine) because she’s much nicer than me, and because it is Icelle telling me all these things, and I know what she’s has to overcome—
It has 99% of my heart ready to make that leap of faith.
99%.
Because 1% part of me is still scared, and it just wants to stay in the dark and turn away from the light. Because darkness at least is safe and familiar. It doesn’t hurt when it’s the only thing you’ve known your entire life.
And that 1%?
It’s what makes me squeeze my eyes shut later that night when I hear someone knock on my door.
Once. Twice. A third time.
I don’t let myself think who that someone is, not even when my tears start to fall as I hear that person’s footsteps fade as they walk away.
It’s okay, I tell myself.
It’s okay.
It’s okay.
Chapter Nine
I THOUGHT I WAS IMAGINING it at first.
A click. Soft. Then the door sliding open.
Kidnappers!
My heart bangs against my chest, and I’m wide awake even with my eyes still closed. I stay very still, because still is what you’re supposed to do when there’s a threat, right? Still and quiet and playing dead. That’s what the nature shows say about prey animals, and that’s definitely what I am right now—the prey animal of a very rich family that a very desperate criminal has decided to break into in the middle of the night.
Of course someone would try to abduct one of Icelle’s family. They’re so loaded that a ransom from them would probably be enough to feed a small coun—
A hand covers my mouth.
NOOOOOO!
My eyes fly open, and I’m all ready to scream and struggle for life and—
Arkane?
He’s seated on the side of my bed, his hand over my mouth. The curtain is drawn but not fully, and a strip of moonlight falls across the foot of the bed. I can’t see his eyes clearly, but I can feel them on me, and that’s somehow worse.
He lifts his weight off the mattress—and lowers it again.
Aah!
He’s now right on top of me, still silencing me with his hand, and his face is brooding and beautiful and bloody grim.
Why do I have this really bad feeling I’m suddenly in trouble?
He doesn’t speak right away. He just hovers, his weight braced on one forearm, and I can feel him everywhere—the warmth of him through the thin cotton of my sleep shirt, the solid line of his body pinning me gently to the mattress, the calluses on the hand that’s covering my mouth. Every inch of me is pinned to the exact spot I’m lying in, and my body has already decided it does not, in fact, want to move.
Which is a problem.
“I had to wake Icelle up just to figure out what’s going on.”
OH.
“My mother introduces you as my girlfriend, and it freaked you out. Is that it?”
All I can do is stare up at him because I honestly don’t know how to answer that.
It wasn’t that.
But I can’t say any of that.
“You think I’m too old for you.”
His voice is low. Formal. So, so formal, and that’s what breaks my heart even more because I know, for him to speak like that now of all times—
I know he’s hurting, and it hurts me, too.
But I have no chance to tell him that, with his hand still over my mouth, and—
“Shall I prove how wrong you are?”
And now I have myself to worry about, and I’m already struggling before he’s even done speaking. Because I know. I just know the moment he—
No no no no no.
His lips have replaced his hand, and it’s exactly what I was afraid of.