Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
He was right about that. Unfortunately, that ship had sailed. She pulled her hand from his and splayed it on her stomach, where there was a small curve. “I can already feel the baby.”
He stood again as though she’d suddenly caught on fire. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Cami, I really am. And again, I can understand why you’d want to . . .” He grabbed his phone off the coffee table. “My mother . . .”
“Your mother? What does your mother have to do with this?”
“She’s suggested I start college fresh. No distractions. I was already planning on . . . Listen, it was good while it lasted. It was great. Anyway, I forgive you for lying and trying to make this”—he waved his hand in the general direction of her midsection—“my problem, but I have too many things happening for me to let you drag me into this. I’m sorry, babe. Really. You’re hurting and I get it. But . . . I have to go.”
She watched him race for the door, practically tripping at the edge of the living room where the carpet turned to tile, and then she heard him fumble with the lock before the door opened and then slammed, the sound echoing in the quiet house.
Cami collapsed back onto the couch, staring at the wall in front of her, a hysterical laugh bubbling up her throat. She clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling the shocked hilarity. But then her face contorted, the laugh turning into a sob. Cami lay down and stared blankly at the wall. She barely felt her lips moving, but she heard her own choked voice. “Goodbye, Hollis.”
Chapter Twelve
Rex took the EBT card from the exhausted-looking woman standing at the register in front of him and scanned it quickly. Next to her, a kid who looked to be about eight pulled at her leg. “Mom,” he whined, “can I get a candy bar?”
The woman swatted him away. “Shush. Can’t afford that.”
The kid sulked as the computer buzzed, the sound Rex had come to know well. “Sorry,” he told the woman. “This doesn’t cover it all. Your order went twenty-seven dollars over. Do you have another way to pay the balance?”
She stared at him blankly before turning to the bags she’d already put in her cart and then removed a few things. “Take those off my order,” she muttered wearily.
Behind her in line came the sound of grumbling. Rex’s jaw set. As if each one of them hadn’t had to do without at least a time or two. This grocery store was situated in a neighborhood where most people watched in nervous silence as each one of their items was rung up, and then breathed a sigh of relief when the total was what they had in their wallet.
He looked down at the things the woman had chosen to give up: a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, a container of ice cream, and a two-pack of paper towels. This probably wouldn’t even cover the balance she owed unless this particular shampoo and conditioner cost more than he estimated. His gaze went to the kid, whose eyes barely cleared the counter. “Actually,” Rex said, “I’ve got a coupon that I can scan for you. Should cover that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’re good.”
She took her items back and placed them in her cart. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes darting around in confusion, even while her expression had relaxed into relief.
The little boy gave him a gap-toothed wave as they turned away.
“How many of those coupons you got?” the man who was next in line asked.
“Just one,” Rex said. “Some rare promotional thing.”
“Shoulda split it up,” the man said. “That woulda been the fair thing to do.”
“Fair is a myth,” Rex said. “Nothing in this fucked-up life is fair.”
“That’s for damn sure,” the man grumbled. Rex glanced at him as he scanned his items. The guy appeared as exhausted as the woman before him with the kid. The woman who was the reason he was now going to put twenty-seven dollars of his own money in the register to ensure it was balanced. The man was old and haggard, and he was buying beer and a bunch of shit food that he was going to take home and probably consume sitting in front of a television set in a smelly recliner.
“Forty-two eighteen.”
The man handed over cash and Rex made change, and then he began scanning the items of the next person in line.
Nothing in this fucked-up life is fair.
He hadn’t always felt that way, even though he came from a single-parent household on the wrong side of the tracks. Even though he lived in a rental with a roof that leaked when it rained and one bathroom that hadn’t been redone since the house was built in the fifties. Even though his mom drank too much and brought home men he didn’t like and then cried when they made her feel like shit.