Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Dee and I had a history, or our families did. It started long before I was even born. As if in a twisted tale of history repeating itself, her mom had once been in love with my dad while they too were in high school.
I never knew the whole story, only that grandma had forbidden dad to even speak to her in public. Grandma was one of those throwbacks. The type who believed in protocol and class. She didn’t think Loretta was good enough for her son.
A girl from the wrong side of the tracks was not welcomed in her home and definitely would not be the girl on her son’s arm for the prom. Dad to this day swears that the infatuation was one sided, that he’d never shown any interest in her.
I’d heard the story once or twice; how mom had caught his eye when she moved to town, how they’d fallen in love at first sight. And that’s where the bad blood came from.
Dee and her family were never mentioned in my home. I never paid any more attention to her than was necessary. She just wasn’t part of my life, of no consequence to me.
Then Nick had given me the heartbreaking news and it all came rushing back. It was hard not to believe that it was deliberate, that she had orchestrated this whole thing stemming from an old family slight.
Whatever her reasons, that night my world ended. Oh I hated; for thirteen years I hated Dee as much as any human being could possibly hate another. Though I never so much as looked at her in passing.
Nick had believed that night was a mistake on his part. He blamed his drinking, which he wasn’t known to do. But I knew better, I knew that for her it had been a window of opportunity.
I don’t know how she did it, was never able to put all the pieces together, but deep inside I knew. And I was the one who’d given her the opening she needed to make her move.
I think what was hardest to take was the blame I placed on myself. I never said it to him then, but I knew had I not acted the way I had and left, none of this would’ve happened to us.
It’s not easy living with the fact that you’re the architect of your own demise. I’ve lived with that for a long time. Maybe it was that that kept me from hating him, from laying all the blame at his feet.
My parents had been rocks in those first few days after I had broken the news to them. The days when I hid in my room licking my wounds.
School had already started but I was in no condition to face anyone, so mom had worked it out so I could stay at home and do my lessons for the first couple of weeks but then I’d have to go back.
I knew I couldn’t face it, no way would I be able to walk those halls, the halls where Nick and I had been the king and queen in everyone’s eyes, and not be with my other half. I pondered what to do until the day I ran into Dee purely by accident.
I hadn’t seen her since the night Nick had given me the news so it was quite a shock to the system and nothing at all like I’d imagined it would be.
Of course I’d gone over it a million times in my head. How I was going to keep my head up and not give her the satisfaction of seeing me crumble. But that one run-in had been out of the blue and totally unexpected so all my preparation went right out the window.
I’d snuck out to the store one town over thinking that no one I knew would be there. It had been days since I’d been out of the house and mom and dad insisted I do something. They refused to let me waste away in my room they said.
We’d had one hell of a row and I’d stormed out feeling hurt and beyond pissed that they were making me do this. Why couldn’t they understand? Couldn’t they see that I was dead inside?
It was all I could do not to end my miserable life. I think maybe that’s what they feared most. It wasn’t until later that I got that. And the truth is I had thought of it a time or two, though I could never bring myself to give it serious thought. I was fine just hiding out in my room, keeping the rest of the world at bay.
But that day my parents weren’t having it and I’d left feeling lower than a slug, only to have the day go from bad to worse.