Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
For some reason, that hurts my feelings. I snag my sandals and grab the bag of coin, brimming with irritation at him. I fling the door to our room open. “You know what? Fuck you. Stay here, then. I’m going to go join the party.”
“You can’t go very far,” he calls laconically after me. “We’re tethered—”
“Then I’ll party on the doorstep,” I bellow and slam the door behind me.
I storm down the stairs with my sandals in hand, and as I do, I practically seethe with irritation at Kalos’s attitude. How dare he say I’m not fun? I was fun back home! I did fun things! I…
I try and think of the exciting things I did. The reckless, fearless, daring actions I’d taken. All of the things I can think of seem to be from early years of high school, and I’m twenty-seven. I went out drinking with high school friends, and snuck into movies, and stayed up late playing video games…but that was before my parents died and David took over as my guardian. After that, it was part-time jobs to bring in income, and night classes to squeeze in some college education.
I think of the friends in class that would invite me out, only for me to inevitably decline. I needed to get home to take care of David, or I’d have to run errands. I remember the looks on their faces, and they’d stop asking when they’d realize I was never going to join them in being young and carefree. And as time wore on and I continued to take classes here and there, I grew older than everyone else, and my classmates stopped wanting to hang out with me. Everyone my age had jobs or families. My friends from high school had long forgotten me, and even when I was invited somewhere, there was always another shift I needed to pick up, because having the money for food became far more important than going out for a few drinks after work. How could I go to a movie and unwind with buddies when David was at home with his head hung over the toilet? Or so weak he couldn’t get out of bed and needed someone to take care of him?
So no, I haven’t been fun. Not in a long fucking time.
A martyr determined to nursemaid everyone you run across.
That one hurts. It hurts because it’s so close to home. Haven’t I traded being David’s nursemaid for being Kalos’s?
But…I loved David. I took care of him because he needed me. Because if you can’t depend on family, who can you depend on? I don’t love Kalos. At this moment, I don’t even particularly like him.
I get to the bottom of the stairs, and some of the despair and sadness I’m feeling washes away from me. The music is loud here, coming through the walls of the inn, and I can hear cheery drumbeats and cymbals and what sounds like a horn of some kind. The windows of the inn have been thrown open, and outside I can see people everywhere in the streets, waving colorful ribbons and dancing about. It looks like a parade.
Why shouldn’t I join them? I can have fun for once.
I briefly think about going upstairs and retrieving Dingle. Retrieving Kalos, too. Making them both come with me.
Instead, I’m drawn to the door, to the fun they’re having outside. A vendor dances past with a tall pole, round loaves of bread spitted upon it, bobbing through the air above his head. Behind him, a woman with a tambourine twirls in a pink skirt, her hair done up with flowers. She tosses a handful of flower petals into the wind, and they drift, fluttering in the sky.
I step outside and join the revelers.
Perhaps it’s the sunlight, or the fact that there’s not a single mosquito or black fly or swamp anything in this town. Perhaps it’s the music or the flowers, or the friendliness of the people, but I’m having the absolute best time.
Someone hands me a mug full of beer and I drink it without a second thought. I eat everything I see, some of it handed to me by revelers sharing the wealth, and some of it purchased from wandering vendors, of which there are dozens. I dance and I sing, even though I don’t know the songs, and the streets are filled with hundreds just like me, who want to do nothing more than to celebrate and have an amazing time.
I love it, and I toss my hair and flick my wrinkled skirts, dancing carefree and wild. I feel good. Beautiful. Sexy. Happier than I’ve been in who knows how long.
A man comes up to my side and slides an arm around my waist, and I don’t hate it. “Look at this pretty thing,” he coos in my ear, his hands roaming all over me. “Having a good time, love?”