Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
After getting out of bed this morning, I’d taken a shower, forced myself to put on clothing appropriate for leaving the apartment, and made plans. Well, okay, my plans were to go to my favorite local bookstore, treat myself to a gluten-free Christmas sugar cookie at a bakery nearby, and pick up some much-needed groceries instead of having them delivered. Living in seclusion wasn’t good for my mental health. I also needed a distraction from my thoughts about Ransom. Maybe the smell and feel of the holidays on the busy streets would do that for me. Staying inside alone sure hadn’t helped. I was only sinking deeper into my dark hole.
The fact that I’d drunk an entire bottle of wine last night, then texted Ransom was my breaking point. When I opened my eyes this morning, I checked my phone. Of course, I had gotten no response. It was humiliating in the light of day. Sober me was never going to drink again. My pathetic I miss you text was taunting me. If only I could erase it. Like the others I’d sent, my drunken one had also been left unread. I guessed I should be thankful for that. I didn’t want him to see it. But … had he blocked me? Was he not seeing the texts from me at all? Would he do that?
The ache in my chest sank to my stomach and caused it to knot up painfully. I hated this feeling. I did miss him. At least ten times a day, I’d think of something I wanted to tell him, but when I reached for my phone, I’d remember he wasn’t talking to me.
I had been ghosted.
I’d become one of those.
The females that Ransom fucked, then ditched.
And as mind-blowing and earth-shattering as sex had been with him, I’d go back and change it if it meant I’d get to keep him in my life. I could live without the sex. I didn’t want to live without Ransom. Even if it was just texting. He was a necessity in my life.
But I’d been weak. I thought that I was different. I was foolish enough to believe Ransom Carver needed me in his life too. How freaking naive I’d been. He didn’t need any one female. All it would take for him to replace me was one snap of his fingers, and they’d come running. He probably had my replacement already. Someone who was thrilled to receive his texts. Did he send her random facts about whiskey? Did she respond with pointless facts she’d researched that day? Highly doubtful. Didn’t he miss our little quirky back-and-forths? Was I truly that forgettable?
If I hadn’t already been in a dark place, I had just gotten myself in a deep, endless pit now.
Sighing, I grabbed my purse, determined to find some peace today. Or just a break from the pain. Anything to distract me. Ease up the constant sorrow that his absence caused.
Maybe then I could talk to Jellie. She was going to show up at my door soon if I didn’t. I’d avoided her because she knew me too well. If she heard my voice, she’d know I wasn’t okay. Then she’d want details, and she wouldn’t give up until I spilled everything.
Some things were just too painfully humiliating to share. Even with her.
How I was going to do Christmas at the Wattses’ this year, I didn’t know. I’d passed the point of pretending I was okay. They’d all see it—and not just because I’d lost even more weight from my lack of appetite. My eyes even looked empty when I stared at myself in the mirror. This year, I might have to be sick for Christmas. Perhaps tell them that I had tested positive for COVID and hide away, wrapped in my misery, here in this apartment.
The smell of the city wasn’t always pleasant, but the bakery two doors down filled the air with the scent of holiday cheer. I took a moment to enjoy it before turning in the opposite direction and heading toward the bookstore I frequented. This had once been an every Sunday outing for me. But my Sundays had become workdays, as did every day as of late. Or sit and stare at the screen days was more like it.
“Noa!”
I paused and turned around at the sound of my name before I registered whose voice it was.
Thurston was walking in my direction with a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and a smile on his face. I hadn’t wanted to see anyone I’d have to actually converse with. In a city with over one-point-six million people, crammed into twenty-two-point-sixty-six square miles, it didn’t happen often.
Lucky me.
It took great effort not to roll my eyes as he approached me. I was in a bad mood. The worst of my life, but it wasn’t his fault. He’d done nothing wrong.