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)
Maybe it was the way Janie’s hair fell away from her face in the fracas that revealed it, or it could be the shitty lighting in the abandoned warehouse; whatever it was, her face was fully revealed to us now, and it was a sight. The sides of her cheeks had long red gouges that I at first mistook for the acne she usually works so hard to hide, but which, on closer inspection, turned out to be some sort of scratches, maybe from a wild animal.
Elena looked immediately contrite, but that didn’t last long because Janie jumped to her feet, spitting fire and out for blood. This time I was able to get between them and move her back none too gently with a hand on her chest. Even that little insignificant touch felt dirty.
“Don’t even think about it. If that’s the worse you get out of this, you’ll be lucky; you had it coming. Why did you do all this? Huh? To what end? I get that Matt and the others deceived you the same way they did me, but you aren’t innocent; you were right there with them since the very beginning.”
“Either you went looking for them, or they went looking for you, but either way, you were not an innocent participant they just picked up off the streets. You’re complicit, do you understand? From beginning to end, your hands are dirty.” I didn’t know that I was going to say this much to her when we met, but the words just kept coming.
“You knew that Rachel was lying; in fact, you helped them plan the whole thing, didn’t you? Are you too evil or too dumb to realize what you’ve done? I never, not once, did I give you the impression that I wanted to be with you. We fucked once a million years ago when Elena and I were on one of our breaks. That was it.”
“I told you then that there could never be anything more between us, and when I went back to her, I didn’t even remember your name. Fucking Matt and your piece of shit father convinced me when I was at my lowest that I had to marry you because of some religious bullshit because I supposedly took your virginity which we both know is a fucking lie.”
I saw what little light was left in her eyes disappear. “Oh, you didn’t think I would figure that one out, did you? You fucked Matt long before you even met me, that’s what he held over you to keep you in line, and the whole lot of you used me like some fucking blind sheep that you could lead around by the nose.”
I hadn’t meant to reveal these things, not even to Elena, but I was too far gone to pull back. Her lack of remorse, her very defiance, and the fact that she thought she had the right to go after Elena after everything she had done to her was just feeding my anger more and more.
“If I had known about your sick obsession with me or that you would someday destroy my life, I wouldn’t even have spit on you back then. Get this through your head; I never loved you, not even a little bit. Even when I was drugged out of my mind, she was all I could think about, and if you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that I was never any kind of husband to you.”
“Now you can go out there and tell the world whatever version of the story you want to sell, but you and I and everyone here know the truth; you were no wife of mine.”
“Okay, Ryder, that’s enough!” Elena pulled me back and away from her when I got too close. As if afraid that I would hit her, which I was very tempted to do.
It didn’t take Janie long to regroup; again, the drugs gave her a false sense of safety and clouded her judgment. I know how that works, so I was not surprised that she thought she still had a fighting chance in hell that she could come out of this unscathed.
“So, you two think you’re just going to walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after? Think again. I’ll never let her have any peace, not as long as I’m alive.” She pointed at Elena and jeered. Those were some good drugs she’d taken because she didn’t seem to care that she was outnumbered and pretty much hated by everyone in the room at the time.
She went on a rant this time that was mostly unintelligible, but most of it seemed to be about her hate for Elena and how the world was going to know what a bitch she was. My name was mentioned a time or two, and from what I gathered from her ramblings, it was as if she’d seen me only as some sort of object to be owned by her.