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)
“You’re getting fat. What would your mother say if she could see you now? Oh wait, that bitch is dead.” How long have we been here that she was already gaining weight? I started to ask that very question when I felt a hand across my face, and then someone else was pulling my hair from above and slamming my head into the island cupboard behind me.
It was both of them attacking me, and I was no match for them in my weak state. Just for calling her fat. Hadn’t we done this a million times? Hadn’t the three of us shamed others online over the years? Were we ever really friends?
That question left me feeling cold and alone. I stopped fighting back and just let them punch and kick to their heart’s content. There was no point anyway. It was all a lie, all of it.
“Ladies, have you forgotten the rules?” All three of us froze at the voice coming out of the wall somewhere above our heads.
“Let us out of here, you bitch.”
“In time, but first, I have a special treat for you. Why don’t you go to the theater room? It’ll be ready in a few minutes. If you choose not to go, the consequences might be dire.”
The three of us scrambled to go, but not before grabbing bags of chips and cookies, which was all we could safely grab. There was no telling what she would do if we didn’t listen this time.
The last time we didn’t do as we were told, she played some kind of horrendous sound throughout the night that kept us from sleeping but also made us throw up until I was dehydrated, or at least that’s what it felt like. As bad as my existence was, she somehow finds ways to make it even worse whenever she shows up.
As soon as we entered the room, a screen lit up, and there they were. I wasn’t sure at first if it was live or a prerecording, but it didn’t take long to figure it out when the little sticker appeared in the corner of the screen.
There had to be hundreds of thousands of people there. Chanting their names, hailing them even as they stood on the stage in the spotlight being adored.
I had the strong urge to dig my eyes out and plug something into my ears so that I did not hear or see this. I looked over at the other two, and they weren’t doing much better.
I know we were all thinking the same thing, but we all knew that if we left this room, there would be hell to pay. So, there was nothing to do but sit there and watch as Ryder and Elena performed their first concert together.
***
*Ryder*
I’ve never been this nervous before a concert before. That could be attributed to the fact that I was usually high back then, but there’s more to it than that this time around. Although Lyon had assured us that there was nothing to worry about, I couldn’t shake the feeling after knowing what I do now about the things that happened in the past.
I have serious guilt about the things that were done using my name before, and now added to that is the fact that Elena has been sucked into this mess because of me.
I keep looking over at her as we do our last and final mic checks before the night starts, just to make sure that she’s doing okay. Not that there’s anything we can do about it now, either way. When we pulled up to the venue a little while ago in our secured vehicle, it looked like there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people out there waiting already.
If we were to cancel now for any reason, it would just make things worse, and I can’t have any backlash on her. She’d suffered enough. This would be our first concert together after years of trying to make it happen when we were together before and never getting the opportunity.
I know now, thanks to the Sanders group and Lyon’s squad, that it was all a calculated effort on the part of Mary Hudson and my management team to keep us apart. I know these things happened. I’ve seen the evidence, but I still find it hard to accept that there can be people like this who actually exist outside of a movie screen.
But one of the things I’d learned in my last rehab was to never bury my head in the sand or pretend that something isn’t what it is. To face things head-on for what they truly are unless I might slip back into my bad habits in order to escape reality.
As the time drew near, I got more and more excited even though there was a hint of fear that things might go wrong. I wanted this so much, to show the world that we had beaten the odds and come out stronger, but what if things didn’t go as planned?