Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
Char had come up to check on me after they left, and I can’t tell you how her worrying about me makes me feel. I have no doubt that she’s capable of all the things she’d said that she was, so her worrying told me that there was still a chance that something could be done to harm me or Ryder, or both.
I wish I could call my mom and talk to her about this; she was more apt to believe this stuff in the past than I was, but I couldn’t do that without exposing what else was going on right now. I knew for certain that she wouldn’t be happy with me being here, not until I’ve had time to explain everything to her in detail, and even then, I wasn’t sure that she’d accept Ryder and I being back together.
It felt so strange saying that, even to myself, the fact that we were back together. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that it was real, that we had found our way back to each other yet again. It shouldn’t have been; after everything that had happened, there was no way we should have had anything to salvage between us, and yet, here we are.
Who would believe a story about spells and dark magic? Who would believe that Mary Hudson had done the things she’d done or that so many adults had banded together to give one young girl her heart’s desire and caused all this? No matter how I look at it and think it to death, I, too, am having a hard time believing that that is all there is to the story. I’m almost certain that there’s more to the story that no one is willing to share with me.
Even Char, in some of her conversations, kept hinting at some hidden reason that would be shared with me when the time was right. Is this what Ryder and those men are really working on? The reason behind the lie that he was working on a movie? What could it be, though, that they have to keep it hidden from me? The only thing I’m sure of is that it does not directly involve me. The Ryder I know, the one I fell in love with, would not knowingly leave me in harm’s way.
There was an announcement on the news finally, but all that was said was that she’d been hospitalized, nothing more than that and no mention of what type of illness she had. Not long after, social media lit up with post after post of speculation, and then the real fun began. I know better than to believe everything I see on the internet, but since I knew that there was actually something going on, I read everything that came across my screen.
I almost felt bad for her when people started saying that she deserved whatever she was going through. I don’t have it in me, as much as I dislike her, to wish her ill. And then the pictures started coming, and I was sure it was a hoax. “There’s no way! Is that real? What the hell?”
The caption claimed that it was Janie Andrews, but the image looked nothing like the attractive blonde who’d been plastered all over social media and every news outlet for years ever since she married Ryder, and the netizens went nuts.
Smack dab in the middle of all that, there was a shot of Ryder leaving his home as the cameras followed. “Wait a minute. Is that….?” How did he get my blanket? The one that I’d been certain I lost after my stay in the clinic. Oh my gosh, he’d been there. I don’t know why, out of everything that happened, everything that I’d learned in the last twenty-four hours, that should be the thing that broke me, but it did.
I cried stupid happy tears as my heart went through a gamut of emotions. He hadn’t even mentioned it, but he’d been there. Why that should convince me more than his words, I don’t know, but it was the catalyst for me letting go of that last bit of doubt I held onto. And just like before, I decided to go for it, one more time, with Ryder.
Chapter 55
*Ryder*
“You straight? It’s time to get out of here. Be sure to take everything you need because you won’t be coming back here for a while.” Tyler came into the room to find me standing there, lost in thought. Every once in a while, I’ll get hit with a flash of memory that I wasn’t sure was real, and I’ll have to stop and think it through to make sure that I wasn’t having some type of withdrawal effect.
Right now, though, I was thinking of the best way to play this. I have to think about Elena with my every move now, and since she didn’t know what I was involved with, the way things may look to her, and the way the press was going to play this, it could very well set us back.