Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“You couldn’t have known,” Jules responded.
“Problem was, I did know. I saw him change. It was slow, but it was there. West was smart and resourceful. He was also a thousand times stronger than me, but nowhere near as selfish. I wanted to escape the life I was supposed to be living so I did. I pretended that Frank and his wife were my family. I had this bright spot in my life for the first time I could remember, and I didn’t want to let it go. I built my dreams around the one Frank and his wife had. They weren’t rich or well known. They weren’t finely educated, they didn’t lose themselves in drugs, alcohol, or gambling. So while I was reaching for that same dream, I lost sight of the life I’d been born into. When West finally called me on it, we had this huge fallout. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he’d started doing more than just moving the drugs our family made.”
“He became an addict,” Jules offered.
“Full blown. We basically turned on each other, though I was the one who deserved it for leaving him behind like I did. Frank’s wife had died by then, so all Frank had in his life was Titan and a few other horses. Those horses were the only thing that kept that old man going. I was still going to see him every day, but there was nothing I could do for him. A couple months before I turned sixteen, I went to see Frank like I always did. I knew something was wrong as soon as I set foot on their property. It was quiet. All kinds of wrong quiet.”
I must have gone silent as I relived the moment because the next thing I knew was that BJ had stopped and Jules was saying my name over and over. The warmth of his fingers rubbing over mine helped bring me back from the ugly, dark path I’d started to mentally wander down.
“Flynn…”
“I’m okay,” I reassured Jules. “Sorry.” I got BJ going again. Jules didn’t pressure me to continue, nor did he urge me to stop. He gave me the freedom to choose.
“It seems like a lifetime ago and yet…”
“It’s always there. Right beneath the skin. Hidden from the world to see but impossible to outrun,” Jules said.
He was exactly right, though I didn’t need to confirm it. He’d admitted to running away from home, but he hadn’t meant escaping the city for a while or taking a break from any dysfunction in his life.
It ran deeper than that. So much deeper.
“The vet from the next town over was at Frank’s. When I saw her truck, I ran directly to Titan’s stall. He was… he was dead, and Frank was nowhere to be found. The vet told me that she’d gotten a call about Titan suffering from a severe bout of colic a couple hours earlier. When she got there, Titan was dead. He’d been shot in the head. She never saw Frank, but she said that he would have known how badly Titan was suffering. He probably knew there’d be no way to save his best friend, so rather than wait the additional time it took for the vet to get to his place, Frank put Titan down himself.”
Tears were stinging the backs of my eyes and my voice was catching, so I took a few breaths to calm myself down. Jules had linked his fingers with mine at some point, so I used that to ground me in the present.
“What happened to Frank?” Jules gently asked.
“The vet called the police so they could search for Frank, but I knew they wouldn’t find him. The gun he’d used to shoot Titan with was gone too. My guess is that after he shot Titan, Frank stood up and just started walking until the forest had hidden him away from the rest of the world. They never found his body, so I don’t know if he shot himself or if he just kept walking until he succumbed to the elements, but I knew that day that I’d never see him again.”
“I’m sorry, Flynn,” Jules whispered.
I responded by pressing a kiss to his temple. I didn’t have the emotional energy to respond in any other way. I hadn’t expected my own reaction when I’d started telling Jules about Frank and Titan.
I clung to Jules because he was my lifeline to the present, but admittedly, I mentally disappeared for a while because it once again took hearing Jules calling out my name repeatedly to get my attention.
“The sun’s coming up, Flynn,” he said softly. I wasn’t sure how Jules had even known that he’d gotten my attention, but it didn’t matter because I was once again where I needed to be.