Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 70185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
She kept looking back at the kids with the two au pairs I’d hired, correction Monique had hired.
She’d culled them from the group that was being interviewed for the daycare and declared them capable, which is high praise from her. I brought them along because I want Justine to enjoy her weekend since it seems she hasn’t had the chance to in a long time.
I’d spent last weekend grilling her family for information on her life. Her brothers may not have noticed what I was doing, but I’m certain her father, the military man, did. The fact that he didn’t call me out on it, meant that he approved, which is the only approval other than hers that I need. Well, not really, but to appear as part of the rat race I have to pretend these things sometimes.
JUSTINE
‘Bitttcccchhhhh, this is a seven-forty-seven; stop the fucking press.’ I almost jumped out of my skin at his voice coming out of nowhere. I’d just settled down to take a nap since Marcus had stopped answering my questions and had closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
Justice, not now. We are thousands of feet in the air, and I am not in the mood for your nonsense. ‘Who gives a shit about your mood? This is one of the most elite air mansions; no one knows who owns them. Well, now we do, Daddy.’
Justice, stop hopping around like that. What is wrong with you?
‘I wonder where Daddy is taking moi. It better be a beach where they serve long cocktail glasses with sinful things inside. Eh, listen, get those two heifers to stay with these badass kids all weekend because I got plans that don’t include them.’
What plans?
‘Don’t you worry about it.’
Justice, don’t you dare show your ass this weekend.
‘What good is the beach then? You can stay covered with those stretch marks. Looking like a road map.’
Justice, be nice.
‘Forget all that happy shit. Look-look-look, do that thing I taught you to do at the office this weekend.’
What thing? Don’t roll your eyes at me.
‘You know, show him your tits. Bend down, do something. A whole week and we didn’t get the dick yet, like where is your game?’
We are not sleeping together until after the divorce is final.
‘That don’t mean you can’t get a little tickle-tickle. Not that kind of tickle, you moron.’ I think Justice smacked me.
I opened my eyes to see Marcus looking at me with a slight smirk on his face. It was only then that I realized I had my hands curled like a cute little kitten about to pounce.
MARCUS
“What in the world are you doing? Your twin again?” She nodded her head and tried to bury her face in the collar of her shirt. I sat up straighter in my seat and held my arm up for her to come under. Her dad had warned me that her ‘twin’ shows up when she needs him the most, whatever that means.
He said it only happened when something big was about to happen in her life, but he hadn’t been around for a long time, not since she was a kid heading into college. He hadn’t even shown up for her wedding.
I figured since a man as serious as he was had accepted this twin of hers that lives in her head then there must be something to it. It wasn’t just some cutesy, quirky thing; for her, this was real. I’m sure it’s some type of coping mechanism, but those usually work in distress. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them being around in times of happiness.
She rested her head on my chest, and I wrapped my arm around her before closing my eyes again. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“The West labels everything crazy. Some things are just people’s way of dealing. If some people really saw what crazy looked like, they’d crap themselves, let alone sit in an office with it on their couch.”
That’s one of the things that pissed me off greatly as I traveled around the world and learned the things I did. For a very long time, I was obsessed with my mother’s death. I couldn’t understand why a person would get to that point. It didn’t help that my sperm donor had claimed that this proved that she’d had a mental illness, and so it justified him leaving her.
No one told me back then that all mental illness does not mean crazy. Mental just means of the mind; sometimes, the mind, like the heart, can get broken, and that pain is too unbearable for some.
When you have a pain, you take something for that pain; when your heart and mind are broken, wouldn’t you want to take something or do something to make the pain go away?
I still don’t fully know what leads some to end things themselves, but I do know that the mind can be broken due to things done by others. And when those things include matters of the heart, it can destroy a person from within.