Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 119152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 596(@200wpm)___ 477(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 596(@200wpm)___ 477(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
“What’s insane is how naive you are. How pitiful.” She moves to kick me again, and I curl my legs into my chest to block her. “Oh, come on. Don’t be a little chicken. Open your eyes. I want to see your face when you finally figure it out.”
I’m hesitant, but I blink away my confusion and take in my surroundings. My mind has to be playing tricks on me. There’s no way we’re here. “What are we doing here?” I groan, the spasms in my stomach making me ill. “Why did you bring me here? How did you even—?”
She picks up a golf club and rests it on the bed Christopher and I once shared. “We’ve had sex on your bed. More than once. One time, you went to some teacher retreat and left him alone. Well, he wasn’t really alone. He was with me. I spent the whole weekend dolled up in your things. Wore your robe. Slept in your bed. I even pretended I was you, married to the man I loved.”
My brain can’t comprehend fast enough. “What are you talking about—?”
“God! See!” She slams the club against the floor. “Again, being so fucking naive. I’m laying out the facts right in front of you, and you’re still playing the coy, helpless victim. Woe is me!” She comes at me, and I duck as she slams an open palm to the side of my face. My ears ring as pain jolts across my cheek. “I don’t understand how he stayed with you for so long. Why he wanted to go back to you. You were nothing to him. It was me who made him happy. Me!”
The world around me spins. Finally, I fight passed the dizziness, and her words start to have more meaning. I roll my head to the side, bringing her into view. “You’re her. . .”
“I’m her.” She walks around me like a predator waiting to pounce. “He was going to leave you, you know? He told me how dull you were. Couldn’t satisfy him for the life of him. I was the reason he smiled. When he came home at night, did you ever smell me on him?” She leans in close. “Did you ever smell the sex on him?”
She pulls back. Her mocking laughter ripples at my skin. “Jenny, you already know I don’t want Christopher. Seriously, untie me. You don’t have to do this—”
“Yes, I do! Because you’re not getting away with this. You’re not going to steal him away from me again.”
“I don’t want—ow!” I howl as she grabs a chunk of my hair and thrusts me backward.
“I gave him everything. Everything I had. My love. My trust. We were going to get married. Have children since you weren’t fulfilling that job. But you had to make him weak. Give him the poor me act so his guilt outweighed his obligations. He had to fix his marriage. He couldn’t do that to you. He was leaving me for you!” I try to block her, but the tip of her shoe lodges into my rib, and I choke on my breath. “You know, I tried to get you to leave him. Thought if you wanted him gone, it would be easier for him to come back to me. It started with the phone calls. Purposely leaving lipstick on his shirts. I even drove by your house at night and left incriminating evidence on your lawn.” Her laugh becomes manic as she walks to the dresser and picks up a photo of Christopher and me. She brushes the tip of her finger down the frame. “I watched you two fight one night. Sat right at your window and listened to how pathetic you were. I watched you cry. How dare you do this to me? Wah-wah-wah. It was ridiculous.”
I remember that fight. It was the night I finally confronted him about the affair. I’d had enough. All the signs. . . I had been naive, keeping what I knew to myself. I hoped I was wrong. That it was just my silly, overworked brain playing tricks on me. But he stood there, looked me in the eye, and admitted it.
“Then something changed. I saw it. You, with your tears. A pathetic excuse for a wife who convinced him into staying. And then he came to me and broke it off.” She stares at the frame a second longer until she throws it across the room, shattering the glass against the wall. “He told me we were done! That he needed to make it work with you. That he still loved you. Do you know what that did to me? Because of you, my future was gone. He didn’t see me the way he used to. He saw me as the one who got in the way of his marriage. He was giving it all up. . . for you.”