Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Elena, stop it; I’m being serious here, we need to talk, and I won’t take no for an answer. I won’t leave until I’ve said what I came here to say. If you still want me to go after I have my say, then… I’ll do as you wish.” I hope I can keep that promise at least, but it was going to be hard.
“When did you become so stubborn?”
“If you don’t like it, there’s a whole big world out there, and there are three places your ass could be right now instead of here dealing with little ole me. In your lane, out my business, and way the fuck over there. Now go.” She pointed towards the broken door with a sneer.
I walked over and closed the door the best I could before heading over to the lounge she’d been resting on and sat down, which made her huff and flounce around to face me. “Fine, what is it? The sooner you say whatever it is you have to say, the sooner you can get out of my hair.” She’s so adorably cute when she’s mad.
“I guess I should start at the beginning. First, I would like to say that you were right about Matt. It turns out he’s as far from being any kind of spiritual advisor as you can get.” I knew just mentioning his name would get her going. She’s always hated that guy, and now I know it was with good reason.
“What spiritual advisor? I tried to warn you; I told you we live in a town and work in a profession where people have to sign contracts forbidding them to even say the name, and you believed that you’d find one of his representatives here? How stupid can you be?”
“I know that now, but how could I have known it back then? I was just trying to get on the right path.” She actually snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Because I told you, and you were supposed to trust me, which you obviously never did.” She was loaded for bear, but I had a lot to get through, so I kept trucking on like Tyler said, or she’d argue me to death before I got it all out.
“Anyway, he was in on it.”
“In on what? What the heck are you trying to say, Ryder?”
“He was my handler or one of them, I should say. One of the people they placed next to me to keep me under control.”
“Who are you talking about? What the hell are you saying? I’m confused.”
I wasn’t doing this right. I kind of expected it because there was so much to get through, and I wanted to pick and choose what I shared with her this first time. But now that I was saying this shit out loud, it all sounded so convoluted, plus I’d only just learned most of this stuff myself.
“It was a conspiracy, I guess you can say, with a lot of players.” Now I had her attention, and she let me talk for the next half an hour without interruption as I filled her in on most of what had happened in the last five years, starting with what led up to my marriage but leaving out other things that I didn’t think she was ready for. I’d already shared plenty, and that was enough. I couldn’t forget how fragile she was and what some of what I had to say might do to her psyche.
When I was done, she was sitting on the lounger next to me, not saying a word. “I know it’s a lot to take in all at once.” The look she gave me was cold enough to freeze my balls. I’d forgotten how she could get when riled. Elena has two sides to her when she’s mad, according to the situation. She can either fly off the rails in anger or get so cold you’d think your life was in danger. After all these years, I’m still unsure which is the lesser of those two evils.
***
*Elena*
“Are you telling me that your shyster of a spiritual advisor and the plastic Barbies, along with that slut of a hag you married, put their little brains together and came up with this?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“Unbelievable.”
“So, let me get this straight. Nicole and Noel Hudson pretended to be my friends only to get close to you in order to break us up so you could marry someone else. Is that what you’re saying?” Nothing about this made any sense, but he sounded like he believed it.
“In a nutshell, yes.”
Something about this wasn’t adding up for me. The math wasn’t mathing as they said. I could believe that those two would stoop as low as they had, but there had to be something in it for them. Unless!
“Ok, well, everyone knows the plastic Barbies don’t do anything without their mother’s consent, so what part did she play in all this?”