Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 117601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
I signal out of my parking spot and slide into traffic. “Yeah. I try to live my life the way Mom wanted me to. Or at least, I’m getting there. I still think about Dom all the time, but it no longer feels like someone is stabbing my lungs every time I try to breathe.” I feel a little guilty admitting that. “Are you in touch with Sarah at all?”
Joe’s lips press together into a hard line. He looks out the window. “Kind of. She is dating a new guy. Rich. A medical consultant. Who the hell can blame her? It’s not like Dom was faithful. She doesn’t have to play the devoted-girlfriend role. She gets a free pass.”
Unsure if this rule applies only to Sarah or to me, I simply hmm.
And what about me? I want to scream.
We arrive at Twin Peaks about thirty minutes later. The pair of uninhabited hills almost a thousand feet high offer the best view of San Francisco. I hurl the reusable supermarket bag out of the trunk and plop it between us on the car’s trunk, popping open one beer for him and one for me. San Francisco spreads in front of us like a calendar girl. A mixture of medium-size skyscrapers nestled between sleepy neighborhoods, all built on hilly, uneven streets.
Joe clinks his beer with mine. “To being a little less fucked up than we were at the beginning of the year.”
“And to helping our therapists finance their Hamptons time-shares.”
We both take a pull of our beers.
“Why’d you choose this spot?” Joe asks, looking around us.
“The Twin Peaks are the only hills in San Francisco that have not been built over. I thought you’d get a kick out of being somewhere completely uninhabited.”
“I’ve always been partial to people.” He smirks.
“They’re also a little dirty, like your mind. The Spaniards referred to the Twin Peaks lovingly as Los Pechos de la Chola. The Breasts of the Indian Maiden, if you will.”
“So I’m basically sitting on a massive pair of tits.” Joe nods, processing. He then lifts his beer again. “I’ll drink to that.”
“You’ll drink to pretty much anything, won’t you?” I tease.
He laughs. “I like my beer, but I’ve been watching my alcohol count recently. I don’t want this to become a problem, now that I’m officially grieving a relative.”
Joe tells me he is in San Francisco for exactly one week, and that he really does intend on writing all day, every day, but that we can meet during the evenings. I do the math in my head. That’s seven dates with a man I am helplessly in love with and who is determined not to be with me. Only a fool would agree to this kind of arrangement. But unlike Joe, I don’t count my alcohol units per week. I’m a drug addict on the loose, looking for her next hit. So I take the bait.
“Sure, I’ll show you around if you behave.”
“I never behave.” He makes an adorable face.
“That’s always been a problem.” I smile at him, feeling warm all over. His gaze on me is like a weighted blanket, I swear.
“So what else is new with you?” he asks.
I hitch a shoulder up, cracking open my second beer. It’s not that I want to get drunk again. It’s that I want to ensure we don’t leave here in the next few hours. Joe won’t make me get behind the wheel buzzed. “I feel like I’m on the verge of something. I just don’t know what that something is.”
But I’m starting to realize what I want to do with my life.
“You’re getting better. Stronger. I like that.”
“What about you?” I jerk my chin toward him.
“I work, I eat, I write, repeat.” He takes a pull of his beer.
“Are you dating anyone?” The question rolls out of my mouth before I can stop it. This is the problem with Joe. He makes my mouth and my brain disconnect from one another whenever he is around.
He smiles a closemouthed smile, then mimics zipping his lips shut and throwing the key off the mountain. He enjoys my squirming.
I snort out a nervous laugh. “It’s whatever, Joe. I honestly don’t care. I’m the one who keeps on leaving, remember?”
This is untrue, and also self-deprecating, but it’s how I sometimes feel.
“I understand why you stopped answering me after Spain. And I understand why you left Salem too.” Joe puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m just at a place where I cannot have my heart broken again, no matter the reason.”
That’s when everything gets heavy and dark and wrong. I regret asking him about other women. I never get the answer that I want. And worst of all, I can’t even blame him. He shouldn’t be expected to wait around until I pull my head out of my ass.