45. Wentworth
FORTY-FIVE
Wentworth
I SHOULDN’T HAVE LOOKED.
Even while I was looking, I was telling myself not to. That it was wrong and that even if I don’t really care about the right or wrong of it, there was a pretty good chance that what I saw was probably going to make me angry at her, all over again because it was going to be a reminder of the life Kait’s lived without me.
Knowing that didn’t matter. As soon as I saw the beat-up blue notebook sitting on her coffee table, I knew what it was and that I was going to look at it anyway.
Lowering myself onto her couch, I sat on the edge of it and pulled it closer and flipped it open to the first page.
Tell Luke I’m sorry
Tell my father to fuck off
I remember that day. How strong she was. How proud I was to stand beside her while she looked her father in the eye and told him no. That she chose me. Seeing that one crossed off makes me smile.
Put horse shit in Abbey’s pillow
Teach Two-tone how to count
Swim in the Ocean
Learn how to rope
Get a tattoo
Climb the Eiffel Tower
Go skinny-dipping
See the Statue of Liberty
Visit the Grand Canyon
More than a few have been crossed off since the last time I read through her list and most of them were crossed off without me.
Leaving you doesn’t mean she stopped living.
Learn to Surf
Order room service
Kiss Brock Morris
Six years later and that one still makes me want to put my head through a fucking wall. Instead of closing the notebook like I should, I flip through its pages until I find what I’m looking for.
Kiss him
Touch his tattoos
Let him draw me
Technically, Kait never let me draw her. I just did it without her permission because that’s what obsessed, crazy, out of control psychos do when they can’t get the object of their obsession out of their head.
They ignore boundaries and obsess even harder.
I can hear her in the other room. She’ll be back any second and probably catch me going through her private things but I don’t care. Because I’m an obsessed, crazy, boundary ignoring , out of control psycho. Swiping a rough hand over my face, I scan the rest of her list.
Have an orgasm before I die
Ask him to fuck me
Go shopping with a friend
Get married
Get Went a puppy
Graduate nursing school
Tell him I love him
Tell him I’m sorry for leaving without saying goodbye
Shit.
Getting up, I cross the room to stand in front of the drawing of Kait and her horse, putting as much distance between me and that fucking list as possible, just as she comes into the room.
Even though it’s obvious that she knows I read it, she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t get angry at me for invading her privacy. Doesn’t call off our date and kick me out of her apartment like she should.
Instead, when I mumble some lame ass excuse about having to leave so we aren’t late for our reservation, she meekly grabs her coat and follows me out into the hallway where she locks her apartment before following me to the elevator. To the parking lot where she allows me to open her door and help her into my car with nothing more than a murmured thank you to fill the charged silence between us while I do my best to ignore the fact that reading that list didn’t just change the way I feel about her.
It changes everything.