Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
I inhale. “It’s been a pretty scary night for me, Lance. Just meet me on Saturday. I won’t stand you up. I promise.”
He nods. “Good enough. I understand. I’ll walk you up.”
“That’s not necessary.”
He frowns. “You sure?”
“Yeah. The building is safe, and as you can see, it’s well lit.”
“Okay, but I’m letting you go under duress.”
I force a weak smile and walk to the door of the building. To his credit, Lance doesn’t drive away until I’m safely inside.
By the time I unlock my apartment door and step inside, my knees are weak, my stomach a riot of nerves. The apartment is dark and silent, matching my mood perfectly. I walk into the bedroom, my thoughts a jumbled mess.
The magnitude of tonight’s events hits me again. The fear, the relief, the sadness all comes rushing back and threatens to pull me under.
I sink onto my bed, the tears finally trickling down my cheeks. I cry silently at first but then let go. Sobs shake my body as I let myself feel the terror and grief that I’ve been trying to hold at bay.
After a while, the tears cease, leaving behind a hollow emptiness. I lie there, staring at the ceiling.
Even after tonight’s events, he’s still there.
Henry.
In my mind.
But not with me.
His absence stretches out before me like a gaping chasm, one I don’t know how to cross.
I close my eyes, willing sleep to take over. But I still see Henry. His blue eyes, the way his blond hair would fall over his forehead, the strength of his arms as he held me close.
It’s all bittersweet.
A lost love.
Love.
The word seems too big, too profound for what we had. It was just a weekend, a fling in the grand scheme of things.
But it was real and intense and beautiful.
For me, at least.
I sigh.
Replaying the past won’t change anything.
Henry and I are over.
If we even existed in the first place.
Still, though, I don’t sleep. I relive the evening, the man, the fright.
And I know my life is forever changed.
Six
Henry
The first thing I notice is the light leaking through the blinds.
Daylight.
The second thing is the beeping. Steady, like it’s keeping time.
I swallow. My throat is raw, and I taste something weird. Plastic, maybe.
I blink. Everything’s blurry. I blink again until my vision begins to clear.
Ceiling tiles. A clock. An IV line taped to my wrist.
Then I see them. My parents. Watching over me like I’m a newborn in a cradle.
My mother’s face is the closest. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her hair is pulled up in a messy bun, the one she wears when she hasn’t had time to do anything else.
She smiles at me. “You’re awake,” she whispers. “Thank God.”
My father sits in a chair next to her, stiff-backed, his big hands braced on his knees. He looks older somehow, his forehead creased. He exhales slowly. “About time, son. You had us scared half to death.”
I try to lick my lips, but my mouth is bone dry. My voice comes out like sandpaper scraping across rough wood. That’s what it feels like too. “What…happened?”
They trade a look, one of those wordless conversations I’ve seen them have many times before when they’re trying to decide how much to tell us kids.
Except I’m no longer a kid.
My father shifts forward. “A support beam gave way at your place. Caught you across the head.”
The words slam into me harder than the wood did. My house. The place I was redesigning and renovating, as if fixing walls could fix what’s wrong inside me.
I shut my eyes, and the memory flickers. Dust in the air, a sudden crack, the sickening impact, and then Zach’s bark tearing through the dark.
Yes, Zach. My dog. His name is Zach.
“Zach,” I rasp.
My mother nods quickly, tears spilling again. “He saved you, Henry. That dog saved your life. He ran all the way to our ranch house. He wouldn’t stop barking, scratching at the door, running back and forth until we followed him. We knew something was wrong because of him.”
I picture it—my dog, sprinting across the fields, chest heaving, foam at his mouth maybe, refusing to quit until they came. Loyalty in motion. The image splits me wide open. My chest aches in a different way from the surgical wound in my scalp.
“Good boy,” I whisper, my throat raw. “Such a good boy.”
“You were out cold when we got there,” my father says, his voice low. “Blood everywhere. You weren’t moving. For a second, I thought—” He stops, his jaw tightening.
My mother presses her lips together, shaking her head hard. “You can’t imagine,” she says softly. “Seeing you like that. But we got you here. The doctors did what they had to do.”
I reach up slowly and touch the edge of the bandage wrapping my head. I feel stitches beneath, a rigid line closing the place where they cut me open. The skin is tight and tender. My pulse thrums there. It’s weird and oddly comforting. The pulse means I’m alive.