Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
“Pfft.” Elle clucks her tongue. “You’re anything but boring. You’re just very focused.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it.” I smile, though it feels like a lead slug to the gut. “Unfortunately, my focus was a problem in our marriage. I thought we were alike. We were both so intensely focused on our careers. I thought her trips for filming and my long absences while working global contracts wouldn’t be an issue. But even while we played at being in love, I missed how desperately Charisma wanted to be loved.”
While I’m talking, our fingers shift. Lace together. Locking like we’re sharing this story together, rather than me unburdening my faults and my crimes.
“What happened?” Elle’s fingers fit between mine too perfectly.
“It started as blowout fights. Then stiff, wounded silences. Then longer, colder, angrier silences. She was lonely, and I was—fuck, I wasn’t very good at recognizing that. Let alone giving her the attention she deserved. I wasn’t innocent in this. I didn’t recognize that her hostility and cruel words came from hurt, not hatred. It was such a habit to wall myself off that I walled off from her too. It’s no surprise when she turned elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” Elle’s eyes widen, and her indrawn gasp tells me the conclusion she draws even without a single word. I shake my head.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” I counter. “She didn’t cheat on me, though she easily could have. She was a beautiful woman with a charm that made her vibrant. Very few men would have refused her. But she didn’t turn to another man.” I stop and sigh. “First, she turned to drugs. It was the usual killing progression from the bottle and weed to the coke that runs through Hollywood like a live current. If I’d been around more, I would’ve seen the overdose coming.”
My jaw pinches so tight it almost breaks.
“Oh no. Oh, August, I’m so sorry. You can’t blame yourself, especially if you didn’t know you had to be there to save her from—”
“Save her?” My eyes sharpen. “No, Elle. She didn’t die from an overdose. Not even when she took too much of that crap, and it was laced with whatever the fuck it was that stopped her heart. They were at this resort in Arizona, and thank God her bombed-out friend woke up first, just in time to get EMTs over to restart her heart.”
Elle shakes her head, clearly confused.
“Of course, I came rushing to the hospital as soon as I heard. Too little, too late, especially to stop what came next.” I inhale slowly. “When she woke up, Charisma told me about going to a place with the prettiest flowers and magnificent birds and two blue moons. She said it was total serenity, a better high than any drug she’d ever had, and she vowed to sober up. She was certain she went somewhere special—the sort of place you only go when you die—and she’d do anything to get back there. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t think she ever lived totally in this world again.”
Elle’s eyes widen, desperate for more.
I hate this fucking part.
I swipe my hand over my face before I continue.
“She turned to New Age religion next. I’m told I shouldn’t call it a cult.” My mouth creases bitterly. “But it was a fucking cult. The sort that operates like a multilevel marketing scheme. Their whole goal is to suck in new members and indoctrinate them so they turn over all their funds to the higher-ups. Charisma needed so much to feel like a part of something, to get back to that special place she believed she saw, that she fell right into their clutches. It didn’t matter how much I warned her, how many friends intervened, how many shrinks I hired to get through to her. She quit acting and exhausted her own substantial funds in no time, and then she tried to hide it from me.”
Elle watches me with her eyes glimmering like she’s hurting for a woman she’s never met.
Her heart is big enough for that.
It makes mine feel like a shriveled prune.
“When I found out what she was doing while I was away, it was already too late,” I say. The words taste like ash, but I need to finish what I started, and suddenly I’m holding on to Elle so tight my knuckles are bone white. “She was in too fucking deep to pull back. She believed in them more than she believed in us—more than anything. My anger only drove her closer to them, and I was still too blind to see this for what it really was—a cry for help.”
“August—”
“No,” I growl. “Let me finish.” I take a deep breath and forge on. “I told her I wanted to file for divorce. She told me that if I did, she would ruin me by going to the papers with stories of how I’d abused her. How I stalked her, preyed on her, manipulated her, coerced her to marry me. All the ugly, fucked up shit that never happened. I swear it on my life. If I was guilty of anything, it was only neglect and ignorance. I lost my shit, told her to make her claims, and she did. In the middle of the scandal, she promised to retract her claims if I’d negotiate a settlement she could give to her new ‘church.’ I refused. We were set to go to court—her to seek her settlement, me to disprove her abuse claims.”