Faded Perfection (Beautifully Flawed Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Comfort than all the years I knew him added together. I fought the rolling in my stomach as he sat down beside me.
    “You okay?” he asked, and I realized my chest was heaving. “River?”
    I breathed out slowly. “I don’t know.”
    Adam put a bottle of water on the table, and my tensed muscles loosened. Maybe I was just overthinking his drinking. He put his hands on my neck, his thumbs tucking beneath the edge of my hair as he leaned forward.
    “Me either,” he replied. “Sometimes I wish they were different people, and I didn’t feel this way about them. I mean, shouldn’t we all be supporting each other right now?”
    I felt my shoulders rise beneath his hands as I licked my lower lip. “They don’t know how to support other people…” I swallowed before continuing; “They’d just drag us down.”
    My body numbed as I watched a tear roll down his face, catching in his scar and splitting in two. As his eyes searched mine, I knew the answer to how he handled his parent’s abuse and even how I handled it. It was one in the same.
    The thing tearing us apart was the very thing that held us together–Bobby.

Chapter 7
    Two weeks.
    Two weeks had passed since Bobby left us, and although my life felt frozen, I continued moving forward. I visited Tara every day for an hour or two and read books to pass the remainder of the time, but I needed to return to real life. I took a deep breath as I picked my cell phone up off the charger. The voicemail now flashed full, and I wondered if there were any from Mom on there, or if they were all from Vickie. I grit my teeth at the thought as I stared down at Adam lying in the bed curled into a ball with his pillow pulled to his chest.
    I wondered how he was comfortable.
    I doubted he was.
    I knelt down to pick up the empty bottle of SoCo from beside the bed, and walked to the door, picking up my stilettos as I did. I glanced behind me at Adam, my pulse rushing through my ears before going into the kitchen and dropping the bottle in the recycling. I gazed down at the handful of empty bottles of liquor and closed my eyes as I ran my hands through my hair. Adam was not dealing with the loss well, or at all really. I mentioned I was going back to work today, but I wasn’t sure he heard—or, what scared me the most, that he cared. I took a shaky breath as I slipped my shoes on and then headed to the door, grabbing my coat and slipping it on before looking back at the bedroom.
    He’ll be okay
. 
It’s only been two weeks.
    I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose before turning out the door. I kept my eyes on the red tips of my shoes as I walked down the hall and to the stairs. I hoped Adam would get out of bed and not just to go to the liquor store. I shook the thought from my head as it started pounding.
    “You can do this,” I said to myself as I began walking forward.
    I wasn’t sure I could. I was going back to work—the place I met Tara, and the place Bobby found an internship for me. My chest tightened as I opened the driver’s side door, slipping into the car and putting the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, but I found myself pressing my forehead against the steering wheel as my grip tightened and the leather squeaked. I couldn’t stop the memories from rushing in.
    Bobby had come to my dorm room with a paper in his hand, and one of
those killer
sideways smiles. He had waved it in my face as I shook my head and nodded for him to come in. My dorm mate had bit her lip as she stared at him, and I had rolled my eyes.
    “You know how you were saying you needed an internship?” Bobby had asked as he sat on my couch, throwing his arm around me as I sat down beside him.
    I curled my legs under myself as I cocked my head at him. “Yeah, but they’re all full. If it’s this impossible to get an internship in Boston, how am I ever going to get a job?” I asked with a frown. I narrowed my eyes as a huge smile spread across his lips. “Why do you