Chapter 128

I had reached down to grab the binder as Dr. Tran dismissed our group. My panic was short-lived when I looked over at Luke and found the binder in his hands.

“What is all this?” he asked, his eyes going over a page.

“If you would have met me a month ago, you would be swallowing your fucking teeth right now.” I glared at him, grabbing the binder from his grasp.

“Sorry, man, I’m not good at social etiquette.” His smile was uncomfortable, and for some reason it made me feel as if I could trust him.

“Clearly.” I rolled my eyes, shoving all the loose pages back into the pockets.

He laughed. “Will you tell me what it is if I buy you a root beer from next door?”

“How sad are we? A couple of recovering alcoholics, negotiating to read a life story.” I shook my head, wondering how I got to this point at such a young age, but I was so thankful for Tessa. If not for her, I would still be hiding in the darkness, left to rot.

“Well, root beer won’t make you burn any houses down, and it won’t make me say hurtful things to Kaci.”

“Fine. Root beer is fine.” I knew he was going to Dr. Tran for more than couple’s counseling, but I decided not to be a complete dickhead and call him out on it.

We walked to the restaurant next door. I ordered a shitload of food, on his tab, and I ended up letting him read a few pages of my confessional.

Twenty minutes later I had to put an end to it. He would have read the entire thing if I’d let him. “This is amazing, really, man. This is . . . fucked-up in some parts, but I get it. It wasn’t you talking, it was the demons.”

“Demons, huh?” I took a long draw, finishing off the root beer in my glass.

“Yeah, demons. When you’re drunk, you are full of them.” He smiled. “Some of this I just read, I know wasn’t written by you. It had to be the demons.”

I shook my head. He was right, of course, but I couldn’t help but picture a creepy little red dragon-thing on my shoulder, writing the fucked-up shit that was on some of those pages.

“You’ll let her read this when you finish it, right?”

I dipped a cheese stick into some sauce and tried not to cuss him out for ruining my amusing thoughts about little demon creatures. “No. No way would I let her read this shit.” I tapped my finger across the leather binding, remembering how excited Tessa was for me to use it when she bought it. I fought the idea, of course, but now I love the stupid thing.

“You should. I mean, take some of that twisted stuff out, especially the part about her being infertile. That was just wrong.”

“I know.” I didn’t look at him; I looked down at the table and cringed, wondering what the hell was going through my mind when I wrote that shit.

“You should consider doing more with it. I’m not expert on literature or Heningsway, but I know that what I read was really, really good.”

I swallow, choosing to ignore the mispronunciation. “Publish this?” I chuckled. “No fucking way.” I ended the conversation there.

But job interview after job interview, I was bored, so fucking bored—and I left each one feeling even less challenged than at the last, and I couldn’t imagine sitting in any of those shitty offices. I wanted to work in publishing, I did, but I found myself rereading page after page of my fucked-up thoughts, and the more I read and remembered, the more I wanted—no, needed—to do something with it.

It just sat there, begging for me to at least try, and I had this idea in my head that if she saw it, after I could cut some of the harsh shit out, she would love it. It became an obsession, and I was surprised by the interest people seemed to have in watching someone else’s road to self-recovery.

Fucked-up, but they ate the shit up. I emailed each potential house a copy via an agent I knew from my time at Vance. Apparently the days of bringing in a stack of half-handwritten, half-typed pages are over.

This would be it, though, or so I thought. I thought this book would be the grand gesture that she needed to accept me back into her life. Granted, I thought it would be months from now, when the book was printed, and she’d had more time to do whatever the fuck she’s been doing here in New York City.

I can’t sit here any longer. There is a limit to my newly found patience, and I’ve reached it. I hate, absolutely loathe, the idea of Tessa’s walking around this massive city alone, mad at me. She’s been gone long enough, and I have explaining to do, a lot of it.

I grab the last page of the book and shove it into my pocket, not bothering to fold it. Then I text Landon and tell him to leave the door unlocked if he comes in or goes out and head out of the apartment to find her.

I don’t have far to go, though. When I step outside, I find her sitting on the front stoop of the building. She’s gazing off into nothing, her eyes focused and hard. She doesn’t notice me when I approach her. Only when I sit down next to her does she look up at me, her eyes still distant. I watch closely as they slowly soften.

“We need to talk.”

She nods and looks away, waiting for an explanation.

Chapter seventy-four

HARDIN

We need to talk,” I repeat and look at her, forcing my hands to stay in my own lap.

“I would say.” She forces a smile. Her knees are dirty, marked with angry red lines.

“What happened? Are you all right?” My plan to keep my hands to myself goes out the window as I reach for her legs, examining the wounds closer.

She turns away, cheeks red and eyes matching. “I tripped, that’s all.”