Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
After that, well, I had plans.
To possibly get some sort of certificate to allow me to get a decent work-from-home job. Even if I continued to do gig work outside of that for extra cash, at least it would be a guaranteed paycheck. The security of that might allow my shoulders to stop being up by my ears all the time.
Hopefully after that, I could get us an actual apartment. Health insurance. A safety net for an easier future.
With any luck, by the time Lainey was going to school, she would be just like any of the other kids in her class.
Minus her father. But, well, there was nothing I could do about that.
Besides, I’d been raised by a single mother and hadn’t really known any hardship about it.
Until, of course, my mom was gone, and I was on my own.
“I’ll just have to live forever,” I told Lainey when my heart seized at the idea of her being alone without anyone to love her.
“Ugh,” I grumbled when my phone bleeped.
On the one hand, I wanted to sleep.
On the other, I knew that I probably wouldn’t sleep. Then I would spend all night kicking myself for not taking a job when I wasn’t getting any rest anyway.
I reached for my phone, checking my app, then quickly accepting the job when I saw the ‘predicted income’ amount for the order.
Sure, that wasn’t always accurate. But for the most part, it seemed to be close. And I damn sure couldn’t be turning down thirty-five dollars, no matter how tired I was.
I jumped up, carefully slipping Lainey into her pumpkin seat yet again, grabbing my bag, and rushing out of our room.
I wasn’t sure if Lainey was simply an easy baby. Or if she was easy because our lifestyle demanded it. She was in and out of her carrier and stroller all day long. And sometimes part of the night. She rarely fussed about it unless she was due for a bottle or a diaper change.
All I knew was I was thankful that she was a good sleeper and happy baby because it made making a living possible and as low in stress as it could be.
I peeked down the second-floor breezeway, hoping not to see anyone hanging about. It wasn’t late and the area was relatively well-lit, but I was acutely aware of how easily I could be grabbed and pulled into a room, never to be seen or heard from again.
All I saw was the stained cement under my feet and the chipped green paint on the railing overlooking the pool, which was so full of chemicals that the smell kind of permeated into my motel room.
Lights from TVs flickered behind the blinds as I passed, and I caught snippets of conversations—a couple having a whispered argument, a mom reminding her child that it was past bedtime, someone speaking Mandarin on what had to be a phone call, since there were no other voices responding.
I hadn’t realized how thin the walls were. I really need to be careful that Lainey didn’t get herself into a full-on wail if it could be helped.
“Ugh, this is going to get old fast,” I grumbled, gripping the car seat in one hand while holding onto the railing with the other as I made my way down the steep steps to the courtyard.
The last motel had been a one level and I’d been creeped out by how many people passed by our door each night. So when I came across the listing for the second-floor room, I’d been excited. Not, clearly, thinking the steps through well enough.
“Your mommy is going to have killer legs and one very large bicep,” I told my sleeping baby, huffing a bit, as I made it around the building to the parking lot to click her into the base in the backseat of my secondhand bright blue sedan.
For just a second, my mind flashed back to less than a year ago, bleeping the locks on a brand-new luxury SUV, not a care in the world except whether the coffee place was going to get my way-too-expensive iced latte right that day or not.
That was a different woman.
A silly, superficial girl, really.
And another life.
One with an elegant façade and good lighting, hiding the nothingness beneath. It certainly appeared perfect. If you didn’t look too closely. It had been built to impress, not to withstand.
And, damn, did life have a storm brewing for me.
“Enough of that,” I grumbled as I turned over the car, reaching to turn on the air. It was sticky out, and if there was one thing that made my little girl unhappy, it was being hot.
It was like she belonged in New England, where I’d grown up. While I had never been able to get warm enough living there.
“We’re just going to grab one last order, then go home to sleep,” I told Lainey. Sure, she was asleep, but I was taking the advice from the videos I’d watched about talking to your baby being linked to their development very seriously. And, you know, I had no one else to talk to.