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)
I grabbed myself a bottle of overpriced water and took a sip, but even that was too much to get past the lump in my throat. “I’ve still got some work to do; I guess I’ll catch you later.” I held up the bottle of water as if that’s what I’d come down for in the first place when the reality was that I’d been starving before I overheard her conversation. But the tone of her voice had killed my appetite immediately.
My head spun as I made my way up the stairs, and all I could think was that I hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of the last time. Back then, before I gave up torturing myself, there were days when the gossip was so bad I’d been on bed rest for a time.
Being jilted the way I had been was hard enough, but all the speculation that followed had been just as damaging. There were tons of people on my side, but I knew from years of being in the spotlight that it only takes one bad review to spoil the good of all the positive ones.
There had been things written about me that boggled my mind, things I never did. But in this day of photoshopping and digital maneuvering, I was at a loss as to how to defend myself. Back then, I was too weak anyway, too hurt and confused to do much of anything.
It was my friends who had taken up the gauntlet and pushed back, but in the end, I was still the one with an egg on my face because everyone still thought that I must’ve done something to cause the rift between Ryder and me. And, of course, everyone knew by then that he had chosen her and not me.
It had hurt like a son of a bitch when everyone had sided with her and him, but then again, what did I expect? She was friends with the new Hollywood royalty, the ‘it’ girls, who pretty much ran everything in this town, and I was the odd man out. I never learned how to play the game the way they did and never wanted to, but hey, it’s whatever.
Because they held the spotlight, she and her friends, it was easy for everyone to take their side, to believe their lies, and pile on me. My image had been so tarnished that had I not known better, I would’ve believed their lies. But what can they be up to this time? What more could they possibly have to say?
I walked into my room like a zombie. My eyes landed on the bed, and I was tempted to crawl in and pull the covers over my head. But something—I’m not sure what—maybe it was the fact that I’d spent the last few weeks writing down my thoughts and trying to find my way back to the old happy me that stopped me from giving in to that urge.
I sat on the edge of the bed and did something I hadn’t done in almost four years. I opened my phone and went on social media. Not my own accounts, of course, but it wasn’t hard to find what I was looking for. I just typed in my name.
So many things popped up, even things I’d missed throughout the years while I was hiding away. There were a million pictures of the happy couple, some of them together and some while they were out with their friends.
It was as if everyone had forgotten about me after a while, or maybe it had been easy since I’d taken myself out of the picture for so long. Maybe they had even started to believe the lies since I never tried to defend myself, and now, she reigned supreme.
I held my breath as I read through the worst of it, struggling hard not to let it get to me. And then I came to the latest gossip and saw what Rachel was so worried about. How did they know so much about my medical history?
How had they known so much about the things I’d shared with Ryder when we were together? Things we’d shared in confidence. Even for him, this was a new low, and it was like him telling me all over again that he didn’t love me.
Of all the things that I’d seen about myself, that hit me the hardest for some reason. After all that he’d done to me, I never expected that he would betray me on this level. Of course, everyone knew I had a breakdown, but they all wrote it off as my response to the situation at the time.
But here it was in black and white, the fact that I had a certifiable mental illness, the fact that I used to cut myself. I read the comments, and they were horrific. People were laughing and making fun of something that had almost destroyed me when I was at my lowest. The funny thing is, it had been years since I did that to myself. Not even when he left me, I didn’t go back to that because I had sought help for it.