Wrecked Read Online Free PDF

delicious rice, chow mein, orange chicken, beef and
broccoli, and jumbo shrimp.
    “How did you know that orange chicken is my favorite?” Bess
asked, bewildered.
    “Is it?” Ethan looked surprised. “I had no idea what you’d
like so I ordered my favorites.”
    “Well, that couldn’t have worked out better if we’d planned
it,” she exclaimed.
    Ethan pulled two plates from the cupboard and handed her a
pair of chopsticks. Bess hesitantly took them from him, eying the contraptions
suspiciously.
    “You’ve never used them before?” Ethan asked as he nodded at
the utensils.
    “Nope. I thought that’s why plastic forks were invented,”
Bess shrugged.
    Ethan laughed and pulled a stainless steel fork from the
drawer behind him. “This will have to do,” he teased and handed it to her. Bess
graciously accepted the fork and they each loaded their plates.
    As they made themselves comfortable on the sofas in the
family room, the wall of windows providing a magnificent view of the moon’s
reflection in the ocean, Bess decided she should get to know her benefactor.
    “So,” she began. “Tell me about your grandparents.”
    “From the time my brother and I were little, my mom was
always ill. She had Lupus and her quality of life suffered. There were other
complications as well that left her in bed… a lot. My dad’s parents, my
grandparents, had moved here years before and we’d always spent holidays here,
so after the time I was about seven, I guess, we would come here the day after
school got out in the summer and stay for our entire vacation. Dad stayed at
home and worked and visited on the weekends. I actually forgot my mom was sick
for those few weeks.”
    “I’m so sorry,” Bess whispered. “Your mom?”
    “She died a few years ago from e coli. Most healthy adults
make it, but mom’s immune system was so weakened that we knew it would take
her.”
    “I’m sorry,” she repeated softly.
    “It is what it is,” Ethan shrugged. “I never understood that
phrase, but now I get it. Stuff happens and there’s not a damn thing we can do
about it.”
    “Your dad?”
    “He lives in Newark. He remarried a couple of years ago and
that’s where his new wife is from.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not an emotion
to be heard. Bess picked up on it and changed the subject.
    “You have a brother? Older or younger?”
    “Older, by two minutes,” he grinned. “Evan. He lives in
Boston. He’s a professor. Teaches biology at Boston College.”
    “A doctor and a professor. Your mom must have been very
proud of you.”
    “I’d like to think so,” he whispered.
    Bess could see the pain in his eyes. Usually bright and a
light blue, now there were almost grey and sorrowful. The laugh lines around
them seemed to have vanished and she sensed the loss he still felt, even after
the years had passed.
    “I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it must have
been. You obviously still miss her terribly.”
    “I do. But there are lots of people who manage to live
without a mother.”
    Bess retreated into herself. She didn’t like to talk about
her mother. She didn’t even like to think about her. The woman who was supposed
to love her unconditionally and keep her safe, didn’t. Bess’s mind wandered
back to that night, that horrible night. It wasn’t just that her stepfather had
wanted to have sex with her, that was bad enough on its own. But as he’d
managed to get up after she’d kneed him in the balls as hard as she could,
she’d seen her mother appear in the hallway, just outside her bedroom door.
Instead of coming to her rescue, she helped her husband out of the room, her
arms around him, glaring at her over her shoulder all the while. She’d made her
choice, and it wasn’t Bess.
    That look, that non-verbal betrayal made Bess’s decision
easy. There was no way she would stay in a place where she worried about her
physical safety night after night, knowing her mother had no intention of doing
a