Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
I couldn’t stop thinking about the discussion I’d had with his therapist. Was I really bad for his mental health? Did he really secretly want to be with Vanessa Hale? At first, I couldn’t believe it. She had to have been lying. But when I called Kage to get him to confirm or deny it, he didn’t answer my calls. I thought back to the day I left, and the fact that he had been conspicuously absent. He hadn’t even cared enough to be there to say goodbye. At the time, I’d thought watching me leave was too difficult for him, but now I wasn’t so sure. The circumstantial evidence was piling up, and it did not look good.
On the second Monday back at school, Braden and I went shopping for groceries. It was our Monday night ritual, and we always went late so that we didn’t have to stand in line or dodge people in the aisles. All we ever had to worry about was the occasional floor waxer, or a group of stoners on a munchies run.
I dragged my depressed ass up to the checkout, ready to get the hell out of there. I wanted to get home and watch some porn to take my mind off of Kage, which always served to remind me of him anyway. One of the mags on the stand at the grocery store checkout caught my eye. Not because I usually read those things, but because I recognized the couple on the cover a little too well.
Vanessa Hale Gets Cozy with UFC Fighter Boyfriend, the headline read. But even without the bold letters to draw my attention, there was no way was I going to miss that body or those warm, dark eyes. It was Kage pictured there, his fingers intertwined with Vanessa’s more delicate ones. There was a diamond ring on her left ring finger.
In a daze, I pulled a copy of the magazine out of the rack and added it to the pile of groceries on the conveyor belt. Braden eyed me suspiciously.
“I’m not paying for that,” he said.
“Would you rather I broke your arm?” I countered in a low voice that was much more menacing than my own. “Because that can be arranged.”
Braden did pay for it, and after we had loaded the groceries into the trunk of the Acura, I slid into the passenger seat with the magazine and flipped through until I found what I was looking for. An enormous photo of Kage and Vanessa spanned two pages halfway through the magazine, like a centerfold without the entertainment factor.
It was a photo taken at the same time as the cover photo, but from a slightly different angle. They had been caught coming out of some obscenely fancy restaurant, smiling into each other’s eyes. The photo was shot at the perfect moment, and in such gut-wrenching high definition you could practically see their hands swinging as they walked toward the camera. And the glint of light as it reflected off the rock on her finger.
God, how could they do this to me?
It made me sick to see Kage looking at Vanessa that way, like he actually loved her. I wanted to hurl the magazine out the window. Hell, I wanted to make Braden turn the car around and go back to the store, and to rip every one of the offending gossip rags off the shelves and burn them in the middle of the grocery store aisles. I wanted to burn Vegas to the ground. The whole United States. The world, even. Nuke the fucker, like my heart had just been nuked.
“What’s with you?” Braden asked cautiously as he put away the groceries. All I could do was lean on the counter and stare at that heartbreaking image. The full story was included on the following two pages, and I read silently, my horror growing exponentially with every word.
The on-again, off-again couple, who have been engaged since sometime in August, declined comment when asked to provide a wedding date. But they did share a romantic kiss for the cameras.
There was an inset photo on the right side of the article. Kage dipping Vanessa low and kissing her thoroughly with those lips that were supposed to be mine. I wondered if he tasted as good to her as he did to me. I wondered if her knees went weak like mine always did. I wondered if they were truly in love.
Vanessa Hale made her mark as a Victoria’s Secret model before moving on to the big screen. Her small-but-memorable debut role as the sexy neighbor in this year’s When the Wind Blows earned her high marks with critics and moviegoers alike, and she can be seen early next year in her first starring role as Linda Barrett in the highly-anticipated remake of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.