Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
People liked Tim more than they liked Tor when they had two options. Given the choice, everyone in this town—perhaps including his own family—would have saved Tim.
But they didn’t know those were the stakes.
They thought I would be the only casualty.
They believed the battle would be fought against me in arenas where they had the upper hand—the court room itself, where they employed far better lawyers, and the court of public opinion would be no challenge at all. They thought they could save Tor if they were willing to rip me open and leave me bleeding out on the battlefield—and Tim was completely willing to stab me in the back.
Nobody thought I would bring a gun to their knife fight. Maybe they would have made a different choice if they understood the choice they were making, but they didn’t expect me to fight back, and they certainly didn’t expect Tor to join my side.
If all of this is true, I might understand the way Carson feels. The horrible things he said to me about his own son. A man like Carson Walters wouldn’t respond well to a perceived betrayal like that, while a mother like Myra would undoubtedly plead with him to move past it for the sake of their family. The result would likely be a dinner just like the one I had the night Tor brought me to their house.
I don’t know if that’s what really happened, of course, but after reviewing all the evidence, I do find it believable.
Nina may not know that family loyalty is the lifeblood of the Walters family, but I do.
Did Tim decide to take a bullet for his brother when he didn’t think the shot would prove lethal?
Maybe.
The night I shot him, Tim said, “I didn’t rape you, Pritchard,” and I thought he was just trying to gaslight me, but maybe he was telling the truth. Taking the bullet for his brother was one thing when it was just a court case he expected to win, but when I was standing there with a loaded gun… his commitment wavered.
Did Tor draw up plans and hand them to Nina, directing her to come up here and convince me he’s innocent so that I’ll come back to him?
He might have.
She hasn’t executed his plans as well as I did, but she’s not the match for him that I am, so that’s not entirely surprising. What must have been her improvising led me somewhere he didn’t want me to go, but even the best architect can only work with the resources at his disposal.
The thing about doubt is that once that seed is planted, it’s nearly impossible to fully dig up. The roots sprout immediately, poisoning the fresh soil it’s planted in. Even if it’s removed fairly quickly, its essence lingers. The soil is never as fertile and trusting as it was before doubt touched it.
Before the other night, it never crossed my mind that it could have been Tor in Tim’s bedroom last summer. Tor and I barely even interacted, so I don’t know what would have even prompted him to do something like that to me.
But now that Nina told me with such insistence that it was, and I started to think it through and make sense of it, it started to feel like reality. It began to feel like what actually happened, and it changed everything—some things in ways I don’t even understand.
It was unthinkable to me before, but now I find it believable.
There have been moments when Tor has been rough with me during sex, even that moment when he emulated parts of what happened to me that night, and the way he clamped his hand over my mouth in Tim’s bedroom when I was freaking out after my talk with Nina… it felt exactly the same. His skin even smelled the same.
A shiver passes over me, but I don’t let myself run from it this time. As I have many times over the past few nights lying alone in the dark, I reimagine what happened to me last summer putting Tor in Tim’s place.
And it feels different.
Because he’s Tor.
Because he tricked me into loving him before I knew better.
Because I’m his Daisy.
It’s twisted and deeply depraved, but what about our love story isn’t?
He told me once that the truth doesn’t matter if the lie is convincing enough, and I chalked that up to his dysfunctional upbringing because the truth has always very much mattered to me.
I don’t know what the truth is, though, and I don’t think I’ll ever truly know.
Maybe if he would have denied it immediately, if I had witnessed a sense of betrayal cross his face that I would even think that about him.
But that’s not what I saw.
Because that’s not what he felt.
And I don’t know what that means.