Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
He’s not alone.
My boyfriend is here without me, and he’s holding another girl’s hand. She has thick, brown hair. He always complains about how thin my hair is.
She’s skinnier than me. He has made several comments about how he wishes I put more effort into exercising and eating right.
She’s wearing a cutesy little dress. It’s the kind of dress he has told me multiple times not to wear because it looks like I’m trying too hard.
He’s not alone, and the girl holding his hand is everything I’m not. She’s the things he made me wish I could be.
Seeing them makes so many things click firmly into place. It hurts. The moving of parts inside me is like sandpaper on exposed skin. It feels like I’m burning inside, like pieces of me are falling off and crumbling into dust.
I realize I’m on the verge of tears, so I push that shit down. Dani was right about him, too. Every one of my family and friends were. I barely process all the moments and memories that come rushing up to the surface–obvious signs of what I’m seeing right now with my eyes that I wasn’t willing to really see. Missed dates. Shitty excuses. How secretive he always was with his phone.
I walk toward them. I’m not sure what I’m planning to do, but I approach from behind so they don’t see me. He’s wearing the shirt I got him last Christmas. I told him he looks good in it, and it’s his favorite. I know because he always packs it when he’s going out of town and he hardly ever wears it for me.
I’m about to tap him on the shoulder when I overhear his conversation. He’s talking to two older men.
“...very promising,” Vaughn says. Was his voice always so nasally? “We’ve already copyrighted the draft. It’s that good.”
Oh, hell no. This girl holding hands with my boyfriend–my former boyfriend–had better not be an author.
She jumps in. She’s smiling a homecoming queen smile. I can see her profile up close now. She’s beautiful. Of course she’s beautiful. “I can’t give an exact timeline, but I’m just working on edits now.”
“That’s great,” the man says. “Why have you been hiding such a talented girlfriend all this time, Vaughn?”
He puffs up his chest. He’s proud. The asshole is proud to be showing her off, isn’t he? He’s soaking up the praise like a stupid sponge that’s wearing too much hair gel, even though his girlfriend told him gently so many times to take it easy–that the hair gel might become sentient and try to take over his brain if he kept giving it so much power.
“Does the book have a title?” the other man asks. “I’m already intrigued based on the pitch.”
I can’t listen anymore. I stumble away from them. I need to clear my head before I lose the continental breakfast I kind of stole from the hotel across the street from mine. The place I booked was too cheap to offer free breakfast, so I may have walked into another hotel like I knew what I was doing, filled up on free food, and got out of there.
It would serve me right to throw it up.
I’m a terrible person. I don’t deserve those eggs and bacon. I don’t deserve anything when I’m too stupid to realize what a complete dumpster truck of slimeballs and moldy dicks my boyfriend is. Was. Ex-boyfriend.
I rush toward the closest door. I rip it open, spin as soon as I’m inside, and rest my head on the wood. It feels like the world is still spinning around me, like everything I thought I knew is coming loose.
“Can we help you?”
I open my eyes, slowly turning toward the voice.
I’m in a conference room and I’ve apparently interrupted a very important looking meeting. There’s a little sign on the table that says Gray Wolfe Publishing. And then I recognize the two men at either end of the table. One is Nolan Gray. The other is Jameson Wolfe. Gray and Wolfe.
I would run, but my body is doing its best impression of water right now. All my joints feel completely useless. I’m not going anywhere.
I open my mouth to say something. A sound like a frog choking on a fly comes out.
There are six other people at the table. Two women, four men. Eight people staring at me looking like an idiot when all I need is a quiet place to cry or throw up in peace.
“Um,” I manage. “Just–” I turn and start pulling on the door. Suddenly my body is working again and adrenaline is flooding me. Fight or flight kicked in, and I’m all flight.
I yank and yank but the door won’t budge. I’m pulling on the handle with both hands, wincing in desperation to get out of this nightmare and run home at my top speed of approximately three point five miles per hour.