Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 137131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
This week seems determined to massacre my hopes for peace and quiet.
Between my ex-wife and Winnie, the drama wheel feels like a steamroller, ready to grind me under.
5
BEE HAPPY (WINNIE)
Once, I ripped off a nail.
We’re talking my entire nail, gone just like that, all thanks to catching my finger in a door.
It hurt like Hades, the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I went to the hospital, only for them to tell me there was nothing they could do except hand out antibiotics to keep it from getting infected.
Eventually, a new nail grew back.
For a while, it was just this ugly bruised nail bed that throbbed every time I moved my hand.
I vowed I’d never do something so stupid again, and so far, I haven’t.
But right now, I swear to God, I would rather rip off every single one of my fingernails than take my phone out of airplane mode.
I gnaw at a hangnail as bad habit takes over, staring at the stupid black screen, considering my options. Which are basically zilch, not after Dad forced my hand by calling Archer’s company, demanding answers.
I grit my teeth, swallowing thickly as I stare at my reflection.
Okay, let’s do this.
I tap the icon to resume service and let ten thousand notifications appear, pinging like a choir.
My knees waver and I sit down abruptly, thankful for the stool behind me. That could’ve been messy.
Winnie Emberly, daughter of the Attorney General, found dead from having split her head open on the floor after panicking over her phone.
Though maybe sudden death would be better.
This is physically, emotionally, and spiritually painful.
As my phone reconnects and the messages fly in like bullets, I genuinely consider tossing it into the nearby woods and tuning out the world again.
Maybe I’ll find some pliers.
Pay my penance that way.
Give the universe its pound of flesh if that’s the cost of a little freedom.
Instead of looking at the texts and nonstop app messages my phone keeps launching at my face, I pull up Instagram. Yes, it has plenty of its notifications flooding in, too, threatening to drown me.
Gobs of people have tagged me, laughing about the oh-so-hilarious fact I fled my own wedding and left my young, handsome groom stranded like a very rich beached seal.
Yes, it’s all true.
But when you consider the fact that I never wanted to get married, and that on the morning of the big day, Holden messaged me about dropping my tiara—the only part of the wedding I liked—you can hardly blame me.
I rest my forehead on my arms, hunched over, as if making myself smaller might encourage the universe to stop flinging crap my way.
The tiara was beautiful.
My grandmother gave it to me and it was this gorgeous silver thing, elegant and lovely with a large gleaming bee in the center. Not obnoxious, just pure class, but Holden decided he didn’t want any bees in his wedding.
Let that sink in.
His wedding.
Not ours.
Never mind the fact that the tiara was the only thing about the stupid wedding that actually mattered to me.
Ironically, it wound up being the shot to the face I needed to remember he never cared about me in the slightest.
This was an arranged marriage, and nothing more. Definitely not the wacky rom-com kind with a happy waiting at the end.
Ugh.
My eyes pinch shut, but I can feel the tears coming.
Bad memories rush back, burning my mind.
The way Mom tried to stop me, practically clinging to me as I headed for the door, even if she didn’t know where I was going.
That first hit of sweet relief when I was free, followed by the chest-crushing panic that still hasn’t stopped choking me.
I’d stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of Springfield to book this place, last-minute, and drove the rest of the way like crazy.
How Dad even found me is a mystery.
No one knew where I was going, considering I came up with Kansas City as my destination on the fly. Not even Lyssie, my bestie.
He shouldn’t have been able to find me so quickly. I don’t care if his lofty connections could outshine a bloodhound in tracking.
I lift my head and see my face the way it looked the morning of my wedding.
All artificially primed and pruned, every stray hair on my body obliterated, my eyebrows and lashes and lips more overdone than an Egyptian mummy mask.
My nose tingles when I touch it, still sore from removing every blackhead it’ll ever have.
My cheekbones feel like they’ve moved to a different zip code.
I think the whirlwind treatments from those stylists Mom brought in ruined me.
I still don’t look completely normal.
When I see my face, I don’t see Winnie.
I see a porcelain doll, everything they wanted me to be.
Oh, Mom was delighted, though.
She touched my back so softly that morning and crooned in my ear, Winnie, you look radiant! You’re going to make him so happy. But can’t you smile a little?