Forsaken by Keary Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

never be the same again without Jessica. When she showed me
her scars I knew I would never love another person as much as I
loved her. I knew the amount of trust and faith it had taken for
Jessica to tell me the things she had, and even more so to show me
the things she did. I was forever hers from that moment.
    I also knew then that everything she
had told me wasn’t crazy. It was all real.
    I loved her more than I could imagine
it was possible for someone to love another. And now I was hurting
her. It was killing me.
    I had just hammered the lid back on a
can of paint when my cell phone rang. I wiped the drips of paint
off my hands onto my work pants and pulled it out of my
pocket.
    “ Hey, beautiful,” I
said.
    “ Hey,” she said. The voice
of a dead person. “I was going to stop at the store after work and
grab a few things but my wallet isn’t in my purse. Would you check
and see if it fell out in the truck?”
    “ Yeah, hang on a second,”
I said as I stepped outside. “It’s here. Do you want me to bring it
over? Maybe I could take you to an early dinner when you get
off?”
    “ Uh, I’m not really hungry
right now.”
    “ Maybe some ice cream?” I
hated how desperate I felt.
    “ Sure,” she answered with
a hint of a sigh.
    “ Okay, I’ll be there in
twenty minutes.”
    Exactly twenty minutes later I pulled
the truck into the bookstore and walked inside. I looked around for
her but only saw Austin working.
    “ Is Jessica still here?” I
asked.
    “ She’s in with Rita.
They’re talking about trying to get some author to do a signing,”
Austin said as he walked around the counter and leaned against it,
his arms folded across his chest. He looked at me with a faintly
arrogant look, though his eyes were hard and cold.
    “ Oh, okay. I’ll just wait
for her,” I said as I leaned against a table and mirrored his
stance. He just stood there and stared back at me.
    I couldn’t take the way-beyond-awkward
silence for long. “So you and Jessica work together a lot now?” I
blurted out. I had a bad habit of babbling when I felt
uncomfortable.
    “ Most days,” he said as he
chewed on the inside of his cheek.
    The uncomfortable silence stretched on
again for a few minutes.
    “ Jessica’s been different
lately,” he said as his eyes hardened even further.
    “ Oh yeah?” I said, my eyes
finally dropping away from his. Austin – 1, Alex – 0. “How so?” I
didn’t see how letting on that I knew things were off would
help.
    “ She’s been kind of
depressed.”
    I just gave a little nod as I kept my
eyes glued to the floor just to the right of his feet. I wished
Jessica would hurry out here so we could go.
    “ Maybe she should be with
someone who would make her a little happier. Someone who would do
anything for her.”
    I finally snapped. All the
tension that had been threatening to burn me up since Jessica had
brought up the fact that she knew I was supposed to propose came
flooding to the surface. In a movement that was too fast, I had
closed the small gap between us and had bunched up his shirt in my
left hand. My nose only an inch away from his, I hissed, “You have
no idea what we’ve been through together. What I have done for
her.”
    Austin’s eyes grew wide and I saw fear
consuming him from the inside out. He didn’t seem to be able to say
or do anything. I knew how I must look when I was angry. It would
probably be the most terrifying thing a human would see in their
life.
    I counted to five and let out a slow
breath as I released the boy that was trying to be so tough and
heroic for a woman who wasn’t his.
    “ I’m sorry,” I muttered
faintly as I stepped away, resuming my stance against the table.
“But you really shouldn’t say things like that to me. Or to
Jessica. It might be bad for your health. You shouldn’t put your
nose where it doesn’t belong.”
    Eyes still wide, he just nodded his
head and walked toward the back of the bookstore and tried to look
busy.