Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,23

wasn’t staying or living with or sleeping with my current Todd. That was the name I blanketed over all the trust fund, cocaine snorting, Wall Street boyfriends I always seemed to have. It was always Trent, Kip, or some variation. Todds for short. And it was perfection that the most recent one truly was Todd.

By eight in the morning, I’d already been yelled at by my spin instructor, talked about the latest kombucha flavor at the juice bar, spoken to a barista about their screenplay I was too polite to say I didn’t give a shit about, and told about five cab drivers to go and fuck themselves.

So, after a week without encountering a real-life human soul or even conversing on the phone, I was going crazy.

My eyes settled on the orange pill bottle in my bathroom cabinet.

“You can’t go to a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”

I raised my brow in the way any woman of my generation did when a man tried to tell them they couldn’t do something. “Oh, and why not?”

I was ready to tell him I could fend off any and all serial killers who may be skulking in the woods of Washington, thanks to my self-defense classes and a Glock my father had made sure I was an expert in shooting before I moved to New York.

“Because you have depression.”

The way he said the word.

Depression.

He made sure to enunciate slowly. Drag the word out. Maintain eye contact with me, making sure to remind me of my weakness. My illness. It was something he pretended to understand. To accept. But I knew it was something he was ashamed of. Ashamed for me. For himself. He got a funny look on his face when I mentioned my mental health battles in interviews, when I even alluded to it in “company.” Sure, he did the bare minimum in private. Was moderately understanding, listened with a slightly glazed over glint to his eyes, but I knew his ideal situation would be if I never told him my problems and only let him share in my glories.

So yeah, the way he said this, the way he looked at me, and the overall fact he was a total fricking asshole really irked me.

“I’m aware I have depression,” I told him mildly.

He reached forward to grasp my hand. I could’ve gone the whole dramatic route, ripping myself from his grasp and screamed at him. Normally, I would do that. I’m a dramatic person. Writers kind of have to be, one way or another. Either inwardly or outwardly.

But I didn’t go for the dramatics. I felt strangely calm. So, I let his too soft hand grasping mine too lightly.

Oh, how I longed for a man with callused hands and a tight, bordering on painful, grip.

“You do not need to be going off to the middle of nowhere where anything could happen. You won’t have anyone to help you. You’ll be alone.”

I gazed at him with an even stare. “Yeah, and it’s only right now, at this very moment, that I realize I need to be alone. Completely.”

Todd Henry III was not at all happy about being dumped. Because a man with his name, his connections, his money, and his jaw structure wasn’t exactly used to being dumped. Even though he was misogynistic, snobby, and not that great in bed.

He assured me I’d have to beg to get him back and then I assured him with my middle finger that I would only beg for the ability to bring people back from the dead or from the brink, nothing else.

Needless to say, I had to change my number in order to make sure he didn’t blow up my phone. Or more accurately, that, upon getting here, having the exact reaction I had, and diving into a bottle of wine, that I didn’t lose all self-respect calling him.

So far, I hadn’t thought of him longingly despite multiple bottles of wine and a lot of uncertainty about my decision to move here.

My hands fastened around the pill bottle and I shook two into my palm, washing them down with the glass of water sitting on the side of the sink.

Unfortunately, the pills and water didn’t wash away memories or those words, but at least they’d eventually level me out. For now, I would try and love my new bangs and go and write.

I tried to drag out making coffee, drinking it, scrolling through my social media, and making sure not to glance at my bulging