Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“Really?” Janelle asks, eyes wide with interest.
“She’s bananas,” I assure her. “But in the best kind of way.”
“Is your family big?”
“Huge,” I reply. “My dad has three sisters and two brothers, and they each had a passel of kids, so I have a ton of cousins and even second cousins here in Phoenix. We spend all our holidays together at my grandma’s house, and we get together once a month.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“Nope. But like I said, tons of cousins who feel like siblings.”
“That’s so cool.” Janelle sighs dreamily. “It’s only me and Riggs. His father and extended family are all in Louisiana, but he doesn’t keep in touch with them. And our mom’s family is in West Virginia, but they’re a bunch of drama llamas and everyone sort of hates everyone else, so we don’t do family get-togethers.”
“That’s sad,” I say, speaking an honest truth. My family is absolutely over-the-top nutty and can be hard to take at times because most of them are loud and boisterous, and those who aren’t are heavily opinionated but manage to voice said opinions in a quieter manner.
Jace hated my family. He never came out and said it, but I could see the distaste in his expression. They were too lowbrow, and he always felt he rescued me from a drab life in Phoenix.
Sometimes I wish I’d let my cousins, Hank and Stephen, beat the shit out of him like they wanted to when we divorced.
The thought of it makes me choke down a laugh.
“What?” Janelle asks, wanting in on the joke.
I shake my head, snickering at the fantasy of Jace Livingston being taken down a peg or two. “It’s just… my family never understood me marrying Jace, but they really tried. He never did. He didn’t want to get to know them.”
“Why did you marry him?” she asks timidly, stepping over some personal boundaries.
But I don’t mind answering. “I was in love, of course.” The dryness in my tone suggests I wasn’t, but truly… I was.
At first.
I smile at Janelle confidently. “Jace swept me off my feet. I was young, a junior in college, and he was so worldly. He was gorgeous, powerful, and wealthy, and I was dazzled by it all.”
Janelle props her chin in her hand, listening intently.
“He flew me to San Francisco on his private jet for our first date to have dinner. I was going to UCLA at the time, and all my friends were crazy jealous.”
“Sounds like a real-life romance novel,” she says dreamily.
“It wasn’t,” I reply flatly, and she blinks in surprise as she straightens from the counter. “I was dazzled by all the wrong things. I was so blinded by his flattery and attention and the lavish lifestyle he was offering, I didn’t look at what was important.”
“What did you miss?” she asks.
“I missed everything,” I tell her honestly. “And by the time I truly saw my ex-husband for what he was, I wasn’t sure how to get out of it.”
Janelle’s expression is flush with sympathy, and I can see additional curiosity there as well. I don’t want her to know the awful details because they’re not only frightening, but it’s humiliating that I put up with Jace’s abuse.
But I tell her what’s important. “The point is, when things got bad, I fought for myself. Even though it was scary, I got out of a terrible situation, and I never looked back.”
“Did he want the divorce too?” Janelle asks.
“No, he didn’t,” I admit. “He fought me every step of the way, but he didn’t have enough power to stop it.”
“And you got lots of money out of it, so you won,” she points out cheerily, perhaps needing to put a happy spin on my life.
“I didn’t win,” I say with a sad smile. “I lost so much.”
“I don’t understand,” she replies, and I realize we’ve somehow gotten into very deep territory. It’s not a place I meant to go, nor do I want to bring Janelle down.
But I also can’t leave her hanging. I learned a lesson, and I want to impart it to her.
Moving around the counter, I stand before Janelle. She turns to face me. “I told you I lost a lot, right?”
She nods solemnly.
“I’d give up every dime I have right now to get one second of it back.”
“Get what back?” she asks.
“My dignity. My self-respect. Time with my family I lost because Jace wouldn’t let me visit them. I lost myself for a long time, and I’ll never let that happen again.”
“I’m sorry,” she says gently, as if the words might hurt.
But they don’t. They’re sweet like Janelle, and I reach out to brush a lock of hair back that has fallen free of her ponytail. “You’re a reader, and you know every good story has a moral. And the moral of this one is, don’t ever let anyone treat you badly. Don’t ever accept that as normal. Don’t ever believe that love can coexist with abuse, because it can’t. Have the strength to never go there, and if you do go there by mistake, have the strength to walk away. Got it?”