Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 60482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
“What’s that?” he asks, his voice careful.
I get to my feet and thrust the papers at him when he’s close enough. Some of them scatter. “Want to explain?”
“You opened my mail?”
“You have a kid!” I scream the words, not meaning for my voice to break the way it does.
He drags a hand down his face, like he can wipe the whole scene away. “Violet—”
“You have a daughter, Travis. A daughter. And you never told me?” My voice is shaking, too loud, too wild. “All this time, you made me feel like we were starting new, like we were all in, but you have a kid in the system? What is wrong with you?”
He blinks hard, twice, then steps toward me, hands out like he’s about to grab something fragile. “I was going to. I was. But you have no idea what happened, okay? I couldn’t—I just couldn’t.”
I put my hands up, not letting him touch me. “Couldn’t what? Tell me the truth? Like every single person in my life?”
He takes a weary step back. “It was a one-night stand with a woman years ago. I didn’t know she was pregnant until she was nearly ready to give birth. She... her mother haemorrhaged during childbirth and passed away, Violet. I was young and scared and didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t be a dad. I let the system take her. I let them take her because I couldn’t.”
My heart breaks into a thousand pieces.
“You left that baby alone?” I whisper.
“Fuck,” he barks. “I had no choice. I had no choice...”
“You had a choice,” I scream. “You left your child alone after her mother died. What is wrong with you?”
“God dammit, Violet,” he bellows. “It isn’t that easy. I was a wreck, I was going down a dark road, do you really think it would have been kind to let that poor kid come with me?”
He’s right, but at the same time, it still feels incredibly wrong.
“You could have told me, we could have done something together...”
“I didn’t know how,” he rasps. He’s crying now, rough streaks down his cheeks. “I just didn’t know what to do. So I got out of town and was never going to look back, but it ate at me. I am working with them now to get her back. I don’t want to fail her any longer. It’s why I came back.”
I cry out, and it’s so pained it hurts. “You lied to me. You continued to lie to me. You... asshole.”
He reaches for my hand, but I snatch it away.
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how to explain what a failure I was. I didn’t want to drag you into my mess.”
“I’m already in it, Travis,” I yell. “You made me a part of your life. Own it.”
His fists are clenching, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
I want to scream. I want to punch through walls. Instead, I take a step towards the door. My knees almost buckle. “I need to go,” I say. “I can’t breathe in here.”
He stands in front of the door. “Don’t leave, we can talk through this.”
I push past him. “You want me to stick around so you can lie to me some more? I’ll pass.”
He won’t let me go.
He grips my arm, not hard, but not gentle, either. “Please. Don’t leave.”
“Why not?” I sob, brokenly, yanking my arm out of his grip. “What else haven’t you told me? That you’re married? That you murdered someone? Fuck this, Travis. I’m done. I’m done with all the lies. I can’t live like this anymore.”
I rush out, the air in my lungs burning as it desperately tries to fill them. I’m already down the front steps by the time he reaches me, and it’s pouring outside. Rain soaks my skin, but I don’t care. I can’t be here a second longer.
“Violet, wait! Please don’t go.”
I spin, skin soaked, hair plastered to my face. “I needed the truth. That’s all. Not you hiding from your mistakes—just the truth. It wasn’t that hard. You didn’t even give me a chance.”
He stands there, clothes clinging to him, lips parted like he’s about to say the one thing that will fix all of this. But there’s nothing to say. Nothing at all.
“We’re over, Travis.”
My words are final.
I get in my car and slam it into reverse, spinning out onto the road, headlights slicing through the storm. My body shakes so hard I can barely grip the wheel. I drive, fast, like something behind me might catch up if I stop. I don’t know where I’m going. Only that I am not going back.
The roads are empty, just rain and lightning and the roar of my own sobbing. For the first time, I’m not afraid of the electric bolts coming out of the sky. Part of me kind of hopes they hit me, because then maybe this pain will go away. I drive until I’m almost out of gas, and then pull off onto a dark stretch of highway and sit in the hush. That’s the thing about darkness—sometimes it’s safer than any kind of light.