Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
From there, though, the story took a darker turn. Much like mine had.
Taken was about a man standing by helplessly watching a woman be taken to an unknown fate.
Don't Cry was another sad song of helplessness, a woman who saw no way out of a bad situation.
The next track was about the bad guys, about their predatory ways.
Closer to the end, there was a blood-soaked, brutal story about a woman fighting her way to freedom.
It concluded with a song called Runaway , this time in the perspective of all the people she left behind. Lines about her mother crying, about her father worrying, about her friends picking up a phone to call her only to remember they can't. Which had to have been a nod to Iggy. Then, finally, the man she left behind, lips still tingling from a stolen kiss goodbye.
If I were being critical, I would say it romanticized an ugly reality.
But I wasn't being critical.
In fact, all I could feel was awe.
Vance had always been a good songwriter. The only lyricist of the group, he always explored interesting topics, always had a way of weaving words together that was both blunt and beautiful at the same time.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
Maybe because this stemmed from an actual experience, something he had clearly felt deeply.
For a few hours, I actually felt myself transported back, felt the darkness, the loneliness, the helplessness.
It had been so long since I felt such things. I had been consumed by the rage for so long that it was almost hard to remember that the rage had stemmed from the even more uncomfortable feelings Vance portrayed in his lyrics.
More pieces of me I had lost along the way.
As though the record wanted to keep our time together a little secret, the music cut just as Vance's engine did as well.
Shutting off the player, I moved back over toward the couch, trying to wipe any lingering emotions off my face, out of my eyes, knowing that he had once been able to read me so well.
"Don't ask how I managed to get all this back on my bike," he declared after somehow managing to unlock the door with his arms and hands loaded down with bags.
Bags fell to the floor and I felt my hope drop a bit too. Though I should have anticipated it. There was no way for him to get me a coffee from She's Bean Around on his bike.
A slow smirk pulled at his lips as he stooped, rooting around in a brown paper bag. "Worried I didn't get you your coffee?" he asked, producing a deep purple stainless steel reusable travel mug. "I had to get inventive on the bike. This said leakproof. I decided to gamble with it. Seemed to work." I nearly lunged at him, hands cradling the cup for a long moment before pushing the button to open the mouth. "Drip with vanilla almond milk, caramel syrup, and two sugars," he recited.
"You remembered." Hell, I barely remembered. I had just been excited about the idea of cream and sugar.
"So did Jazzy. She was like 'You know what's weird? That's the same drink the missing girl used to order years back.' Even she remembers you."
"Iggy and I practically lived there for a year. Oh, my God," I moaned as I took my first sip. Yes, moaned.
Judging by the awkward cough Vance let out, it sounded as sexual to him as it did to me. "Good as you remember?" he asked, a slow smirk pulling at those lips I had spent endless hours fantasizing of kissing.
"Better," I corrected.
"It's the little things you miss," he told me, seemingly from knowledge. Like maybe he had left Navesink Bank for a while as well. Long enough to miss the little things about it.
There was so much I didn't know.
And what was maybe even more surprising, things I wanted to know.
Where had he been?
Why had he written an album about my life?
Why did he become a Henchmen?
Burning questions all, but I somehow felt I had no right asking, demanding anything from these people that I had left behind.
"I think I did pretty well," he added, stooping to retrieve a few of the bags that belonged to the local grocery store. "I got the shit on your list, but grabbed a few extra things. You can't exist on Devil Dogs and cheese puffs. This fridge doesn't hold much, but I got some stuff to throw in the cabinet. And I can always pick up anything else you want. Or bring by some takeout."
Takeout.
God.
I had nearly forgotten about takeout.
Chinese.
Pizza.
Fried stuff.
Oh, fuck yes, fried stuff.
"I can..."
"No," he cut me off. "You can't," he added.
It had been a long, long time since someone told me I couldn't do something.
Maybe Holden had done it in the early years to piss me off, to try to get me to fight harder, but after a while, we had become almost equals in life. We trained together. We ran together. Sometimes we hit the town together. But we lived wholly independent lives outside of that. Really, even after almost nine years, I had no idea what the hell he did all day in his house.