Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Hey, I’m just here with my friends,” she said. “We’re all just trying to have a good time, okay?” She turned away from him, flipping her long hair over her shoulder and leaning into her group, all women around the same age as her, too young to think of Shawn as anything but a creepy old man. Her friends all laughed, and Shawn felt his face go red with rage – they were laughing at him, he was sure of it. The son of the Conqueror of Kakabeka. Harassing them at the bar. He grabbed the back of Cassandra’s chair and ripped it away from the table with her still in it, spinning her around to face him, surprised at how light it was. She gave a little squeal and stared at him, stunned.
“Leave my family alone,” he said. “Stop calling, stop coming by the hospital, stop talking about us on air. Just stop. Stop.”
Recognition dawned in her eyes, and she gave a little half smile that terrified Shawn right down to the bottom of his heart. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Shawn felt himself get pulled backwards by the collar by a very strong man with very bad breath – a bouncer who twisted Shawn’s arm behind him and propelled him through the bar and out the door. Shawn stumbled forward and fell, his knees skidding across the sidewalk.
“You stay the fuck away from her, and this bar,” the bouncer said before slamming the door.
Shawn stood up, stretching his arm forward and back to make sure his shoulder wasn’t dislocated, and through the front window he could see Cassandra watching him intently, memorizing every last detail of the scene for future reference, locking it away in her brain for safekeeping until she needed it for her next newscast on the preposterous Parker family.
After that, things get hazy again. Shawn remembers trying to get a cab. He remembers bumming a cigarette from someone outside a different bar. He doesn’t remember getting to Hanna’s, or anything else after that.
“You cried a little bit,” Hanna says matter-of-factly. “You didn’t want to talk about it, so I just left you on the couch.” She is getting ready to go to the store – inventory, she claims, but Shawn is sure she just wants to get away from him. “Do you want to take a shower or anything?”
“No,” says Shawn. He feels drained, defeated, unsure what he should do. “I just want to go home.”
THIRTEEN
