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)
I rolled over in bed and tried to stand on my feet to go after my phone; I had things to say, dammit, but the room spun wildly just before I passed out and hit the floor.
***
*Jessica*
Ugh, what is she doing in there now? I got up and went to see about her and wasn’t surprised to find her passed out on the floor again. I lifted her much lighter form and placed her back on the bed before heading into the bathroom to grab a wet washcloth to clean her up; she’d thrown up all over herself.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. After the way she’d tormented me for years, I should be enjoying her demise, but instead, I can’t help but feel a lot of pity for her and what she’d become. There was nothing left of the vaguely attractive young girl I knew all those years ago.
In her place was this wretched, almost hag-like creature that didn’t seem to understand the reality of what and where she was. With her makeup long gone, it was easy to see the result of her drug abuse. It was written all over her face.
There were pockmarks and scabs from where she’d dug at her flesh, and an ugly scar on either cheek was beginning to form. “What the hell have you done to yourself?”
I knew the story, like everyone else, had seen the train wreck unfold over time but had no real interest in her beyond bemoaning the fact that people like her always seemed to land on their feet, something I deplored more than I can put into words.
I had no time for her beyond a passing thought anyway since I had my own issues to deal with, but never in a million years would I have thought our paths would cross again in this lifetime.
I’ve always believed in fate and the laws of attraction, but not even then would I have thought that our lives would collide in this way. I’d lied to her, of course, about my reasons for being here, well, partly anyway.
Had my life been going well, I would’ve still jumped at the chance to watch her disintegrate, but there was something more important at stake than my petty revenge for her childhood slights.
When I was first contacted, I thought it was a sick joke. I never would’ve imagined in a million years that things would take such a turn. To me, she and her husband were no different from any other Hollywood couple who I barely paid attention to every once in a while, when one of them did something dumb enough to make the headlines, so I had no real interest in having any dealings with her.
But they knew exactly how to catch my interest. I guess she was too far gone in her drug withdrawal haze to question why someone who had come as far as I had would waste their time coming here just to see someone from their past suffering, and I guess I can be thankful for that, the fewer questions she asked, the better.
I don’t know how I would explain the real, unbelievable reason why I was here. When she was tormenting me on the playground all those years ago, neither of us could have imagined that our lives would intersect in such a way down the road.
How could either of us have known that my little sister would disappear from one of her ex-husband’s concerts, never to be seen again?
I’d long given up hope of seeing her again after years and thousands of dollars spent searching for her. It was easier to convince myself that she was dead than to spend my days imagining the hell her life must have become at the hands of whoever had taken her.
There was hardly any mention of it in the news, and at the time, I didn’t put the two together, believing all along that she’d been taken somewhere between the stadium and home. No one had seen or heard anything, not even the friends who had lost track of her while enjoying the show.
So, imagine my disbelief when some stranger contacted me out of the blue with the news that they might know where she was. The story was so fantastical that I almost blew them off at first, wishing them to hell for dredging up all that I had gone through before.
I’d finally gotten to a place where it didn’t hurt to breathe, where the guilt of living on while the sister I had helped raise was gone, and besides, they weren’t the first to lie about having news just to get paid. Add to that the fact that they weren’t very forthcoming with information, and I was ready to write them off. Now, today, I’m eternally grateful that I followed my instincts in the end and listened one last time.