Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“What’s up?”
“I’m happily drunk.”
“I love that for you.”
“I love you, too,” she replied. Even drunk, she realized her words and shook her head. “I mean, I love that for me, too. I mean… Well, you know what I mean. I didn’t mean… Well, you know.”
I chuckled. “I know what you meant.” Even if I wished she meant what she’d said, I knew what she meant.
“Now, one question for you. A very serious question,” she said.
“Okay. Shoot.”
She leaned in closer. “Do you think I’m allowed to go change out of this dress now? Because I think my measurements were a little off and it’s a little too tight and I just want to change into sweatpants so I can eat more pizza.”
“It’s your birthday. You can change out of anything you want.”
She placed her hands against her hips and sighed heavily. “Okay, good because one more inhale, and the seams would bust and my butt would be on full display.”
As if that’s a bad thing, Kierra.
“I’ll be back,” she said, hurrying up the stairs. I watched her backside the whole time she exited, too. It didn’t take long for her to return, though. Yet when she emerged from around the corner, she was still wearing that amazing red dress. The only issue was she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Her eyes were wide with panic, and I couldn’t help but walk closer to the staircase to see what was wrong.
Before I could begin to walk up the steps, I saw a panicked Ramona hurrying over to Kierra’s side, pulling up the strap of her dress. My head tilted as confusion filled me. That was until Henry emerged behind her, buttoning up his shirt. Unlike Ramona, he didn’t seem panicked at all. He seemed smug.
It was right then that I knew exactly what had taken place.
“Kierra, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that. I mean, I didn’t mean for…” Ramona began rambling.
Kierra didn’t look at her for one second. Instead, her head rose and I caught her stare. She blinked once, and the pure shock on her face made my heart shatter into a million pieces. I couldn’t imagine how her own heart felt. How much betrayal could a heart endure before it simply gave up on beating?
Henry scolded her, instead of apologizing. “Don’t make a damn scene, will you, Kierra? You’re always making a damn scene. Tonight has been perfect. Don’t mess that up with your dramatics.”
With her dramatics?
Oh, fuck this guy.
She turned to him, almost robotically, and said, “Fuck you, Henry.”
He was as shocked as I was hearing those words fall from her mouth. Maybe it was the liquid courage pumping through her veins, or maybe she’d just reached her fed-up limit. Either way, she stood up for herself.
Henry quickly gripped her wrist and yanked her toward him with a force that sent a rage through every inch of me. “Don’t fucking embarrass me, Kierra,” he whispered as she cringed from his tight grip on her arm.
Without a thought, I headed up the stairs, straight toward Henry, and slammed my fist into his face. He stumbled backward, his body crashing to the floor. The whole party froze at that moment. The only sound heard was the music speakers, filling the space with jazz music.
The horrific situation made Kierra dart down the staircase and head outside. I followed after her. As I passed Ava, she looked just as perplexed as everyone else around us. “Gabriel, what’s going—?”
“One second, kid. Let me check on your mom,” I said as I sped past her.
I hurried to the backyard, where Kierra had rushed out to. She bent over and placed her hands on her sides, taking in deep breaths. Her whole body shook as I moved over to her. I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she almost leaped out of her skin as she shot around.
“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s me. It’s me.”
The moment she realized it wasn’t her husband touching her, she tried her best to shake off her nerves and catch her breath. “Sorry, sorry. I–I–I can’t—” She shook her head and began to pace. “I fucking hate him,” she cried. “I fucking hate him.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I do, too.”
“He likes it. He likes when I catch him because he gets off on hurting me. He’s sick, and he couldn’t stand that today was about me. He couldn’t handle that something was for me and not him. He couldn’t…” She took a deep breath and waved her hands wildly. “Fuck it. I don’t care. I’m so tired of caring. There’s nothing more that I care about.”
“Kierra.”
“Yes?”
“How can I help?”
Those words made her movements slow down. She looked up at me and her eyes flooded with tears. “Can you make me strong? Not this weak, embarrassing person who now has to deal with a household of people seeing me have a breakdown? I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to be weak.”