Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Gotta love childhood trauma, because when I allow myself, I’m kind of funny.
At thirty-six, I was diagnosed as neurodivergent. A touch of ADHD and a tiny bit of autism—you know, a fun little cocktail of mental illness that has the world telling you you’re the problem. It’s insane how I went so long thinking that when, really, my brain just works different from everyone else’s. Years of being told to sit still, not to talk, of being told I can’t eat the same thing for a week when it’s all I wanted.
I never really understood my peers growing up. I wasn’t like them. I was focused on skating and didn’t want the normal things teenagers did. So, I tried to be like them, but it was all a lie. I convinced myself that I could be them because being myself wasn’t enough. It took twenty years of therapy and a couple diagnoses to realize there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I just wasn’t meant to fit into the box society deems to be “right.”
And that’s okay.
At thirty-seven, after I had another failed relationship because he couldn’t get me to orgasm no matter what he did, my therapist suspected that I was asexual. In my ex’s defense, I can’t even get myself off regularly, so really, it’s not his fault. My therapist, though, dug deeper, and then we realized I’m not usually attracted to anyone. Not even when I was a young teen did I have the phase of boy crazies. No, I only cared about skating. As that thought crosses my mind, as I’ve been doing with my therapist, I know I’m lying.
There was one guy I felt something with. A little burning in my gut. A flutter in my chest. And with one look in those dark-brown eyes, wetness gathered between my thighs. To this day, I wonder if it was all a figment of my imagination because I don’t get aroused.
But like everyone else, he threw me to the side the moment we had our gold medals.
Wow. My boyfriend is dumping me, and I’m thinking of him?
I may need a drink.
“I just want you to want me!” Chad yells, pulling my attention from where I’m trying to figure out which bottle of wine I want to devour. “Like I want you.”
I blink up at him. He’s so beautifully good-looking, but nothing. I wait for the tears, I wait for the guilt, anything, but nothing comes. Maybe I am a robot. With a steady voice, I tell him, “I’m sorry.”
“So, you want this to end?”
I shrug. “I think it’s been over for a while,” I admit honestly. “I care for you, but it’s obvious I’m not giving you what you need.”
“Can’t you try?” he throws back at me, and I hold his hurt gaze.
I thought I was. The need to fix my wrongs burns deep within me, but I don’t know how. I quickly go through our relationship. Our nights of reading and watching TV. Sleeping in the same bed but never touching each other. The galas, the charity functions we attended together. The holidays with his family and mine. The countless times we had sex and I never got off. Was I even there?
I realize I’ve been living on autopilot, and this isn’t how I want my life to be.
Something has to change.
I haven’t traveled since I met Chad. Maybe I need to do that again.
One thing is for sure—this is over.
I lick my lips, and my body is begging me to look away, but I don’t. “I’m sorry I wasted your time, Chad. Truly. I am.”
He shakes his head, and when tears gather in his eyes, my heart sinks. “How can you be so calm about this while I’m dying inside?”
“Inside is a storm. I just can’t let it out,” I say, quoting my dad from whenever I’d get to be too much. It is the Temu version of “Conceal, don’t feel” from Frozen. Not wanting to think of my father right now, and since Chad is already down, I won’t admit that the storm inside me has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the fact that I just wasted a year of both of our lives.
“Yeah, there always is,” he mutters, shaking his head, and I wonder why I never noticed that he always did that. Undermined by my chaotic brain. But really, what do I expect? No one but my grandma ever cared.
Okay, this is not the time for woes, Fable.
But what if it is? I am getting dumped.
Nah, still not the time.
He hesitates for a moment before he tells me, “Fine. But if you let me leave, Fable, I won’t come back.”
“I know,” I say softly, holding his gaze. “I wish you well.”
He comes toward me and leans over to kiss my lips softly, surprising me completely. It’s awkward and chaste before he pulls back to look at me. “Have a good life, Fable.”