Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
“I—”
“And I’m gonna kill him for that. But I’m not broken up about your mother being dead either.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to kill him. I don’t want you to kill anyone.”
“Well, you’ve got no choice in the matter.”
He’s insane and I love him. I love him so much that my entire chest spasms with it. Breathing deep, I say, “Fine, I don’t want to fight with you right now. But I need my clothes, Arsen.”
“Yes,” he says, squeezing my wrist again. “But not the ones you wore. I’ll buy you new ones.”
“What was wrong with what I wore?”
“You used them to hide yourself and you’re done hiding.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t know what I could say to that because he’s right. I did use my clothes, even the ones Haven got me, to hide myself. I even hid myself in the dress I wore for him that day at the café. I guess the only time I haven’t been able to hide myself was when I wore my wedding dress, the one he bought me.
“Is that why you bought me that dress?” I ask then.
“I bought you that dress because I was goin’ to ruin your life,” he says after a beat, his eyes dark. “And maybe through some miracle, there was enough goodness left in me that told me that I should at least buy you a new dress for the day that most girls consider one of the most important days of their lives. Even though it was all a sham.”
This is when I realize something. I don’t think he knows it. That the goodness left in him isn’t there by some miracle. It’s there because it’s a part of him. It’s a part of him that survived the night his life changed eight years ago. It’s the part that survived the fire.
“You did it to yourself, didn’t you?” I blurt out.
“What?”
I don’t know if I should say it or not. But I’m going to. I don’t care if I’m stepping on a land mine and it’s going to blow me to pieces. “The brand on your back. You did it to yourself, didn’t you? You put it on your back.”
He did it as penance. I couldn’t figure it out before, but now I know. I may not know everything about him, but I know this is who he is. I mean, he’s ready to pay for his crimes against me. “You burned yourself for her.”
His eyes flash fiercely. “I’ll do anythin’ for her.”
The pain in my chest is so huge that it’s a wonder I’m not crying out. It’s a wonder my words are clear enough for him to understand. “It means revenge, doesn’t it, that ‘R.’”
He stares at me for a beat. “You don’t need to know what it means.”
Because this is all a sham.
I knew that. I know that. All these games that we’re playing, they are just that, games. I’m not really his wife and he’s not really my husband. I’ll be gone at the end of three weeks. He said so himself just now. But at some point last night, I pushed it to the back of my mind. I lost myself in his kisses and his body. In his worshipping hands and penitent fingers.
But he didn’t. He never did.
“What is that?” I ask, motioning to the bottle of water in his hand along with a white pill.
He follows my gaze and replies, “For your pain from last night.”
Even though we’re so far past it all, I still ask because I’m trying to make a point: “You’re not trying to drug me again, are you?”
He looks up, and whatever he sees on my face clues him in on what I’m doing because he says, “Don’t need to.”
“Because you know I won’t run?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Because you’ll be gone at the end of three weeks anyway.”
See? He never forgot. Not even for a single second. And I have further proof. There’s something that I spy from the corner of my eye, lying discarded by the end of the bed. I motion at it with my chin. “And what is that?”
He doesn’t need to look to figure out what I’m pointing at. “The wrapper that the condom came in.”
“You wore a condom last night,” I say in a flat tone, but I know this is an accusation.
I had no idea until I caught sight of the wrapper that he’d used a condom. I was so lost in him, so gone that I wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t care. It didn’t even enter my brain; old Reverie would scoff at my carelessness. My new self, however, is enraged that he betrayed me in this way. That he thought I needed protection from him, and I’m going to explain just what kind of protection in a second.