Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
They’d heard what had happened. They talked. They judged. They made up lies.
But I knew the truth because I knew Ramsey better than anyone else.
Nora and I lived a quiet life together. We’d bought a house about half an hour away from our old neighborhood. She was a proud first grade teacher, and I’d opened a successful internet travel agency in the small space next door to my father’s barbershop. We were two independent women, neither of whom needed a roommate. But since the day we’d lost half of our hearts, Nora Stewart had never left my side.
I pretended it was because she’d lost her big brother and needed someone to lean on, but I knew she was there to take care of me. I told her almost every day that she didn’t have to. She ignored me. Just like her brother would have.
A puzzle of tan buildings surrounded by chain link fences and barbwire came into view as we made our way up the hill.
He was in there.
Oh, God, he was in there.
“Thea, stop. You’re making me nervous here,” Nora said, pulling into a parking spot in the virtually empty lot.
“I can’t stop. He’s coming home.”
“I know,” she whispered, shooting me a smile that looked so much like his that it caused a sharp pain in my chest. “It’s almost over.”
It wasn’t though. He was being released three years and some change early and would have to spend the next thirty-six months strictly adhering to the conditions of his parole.
But he’d be free.
And he could come home.
And he could be mine again. Twelve years, eight months, three weeks, four days, twelve hours, and forty-three minutes, and he could finally be mine again.
“What time is it?” I asked Nora, physically unable to drag my eyes off the chain link gates.
“Twelve thirty.”
God, how was I ever going to get through another thirty minutes of torture? I was exhausted and my entire body ached, but I was so damn close to pressing play on my life again. After pulling the visor down, I busied my trembling hands by smoothing my long, brown hair. I’d done the best I could with concealer to hide the bags under my pale-green eyes. It was a lost cause. Sleep had been a fruitless effort in the weeks since I’d found out he was coming home.
Nora let out a sigh. “Listen. I want you to be prepared for—”
“Don’t say it,” I clipped, closing the visor.
Her brown eyes sparkled in the midday sun. “You don’t understand. He’s changed. A lot.”
“We all have.” I was far from the sixteen-year-old tomboy he’d once dated.
Hell, he was probably going to have a heart attack when he saw me in the navy-blue maxi dress I’d chosen simply because it hugged all the right curves. Though, curves or not, the way I looked had never mattered to Ramsey before, and I didn’t suspect now would be any different.
“You need to be realistic here,” Nora warned.
I turned in my seat to give her my full attention. “I am being realistic.”
“Thea—”
“Don’t. Not today. I don’t need a lecture right now about how we’re not teenagers anymore. I get it, okay? Things have changed.” I tapped my finger over my heart. “But not in here. In here, nothing will ever change. So please. Give it a rest and let me have today.”
Her face got soft. “I just want you to be happy.”
I smiled and, for the first time in as long as I could remember, it breached the numbness and warmed my skin. “I know, and this is easily the best day of my entire life. We can be nervous. We can be excited. But no more worrying. I’m going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine from here on out.”
She smiled, entirely unconvinced, but she loved me enough not to argue.
This wasn’t the end of a fantasy where we lived happily ever after. It was going to be a hard transition for all of us. When Ramsey had been locked up, Nora had been fourteen, I’d been sixteen, and he’d been seventeen. Back then, we’d been invincible for no other reason than we’d had each other. But for the last decade, we’d been forging our own paths. Ones I was desperate to finally merge back together.
With Ramsey back, time could finally start again. No more countdowns. No more hollow seconds passing without him. No more hiding under our tree, crying and pleading for the boy who had stolen my heart to suddenly appear.
No. Those days were gone.
In mere minutes, a man I no longer knew—but had never stopped loving—was going to emerge from between the chain link gates. I’d never been more ready for anything in my entire life.
I stared down at my watch, the minutes passing with the agonizing speed of millenniums. while Nora fidgeted beside me. We didn’t talk. There were no words left to say.