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)
“I remember that night.” The poster mentioned a night when Ryder and I had been together for about three years, it was right after one of our breaks, and we were making noise about getting back together. I had gone to a production party, one of those wild Hollywood things that I was never too fond of.
That night Mary had been especially friendly. I think that was the first time she’d joked about being my manager, something I had just laughed off as a joke because she was no one’s manager as far as I knew, except for her own daughters, and I already had Mom as a manager.
That night I was tired and wanted to leave early, but she kept coming up with excuses for me to stay, even after her own kids had left. I was now learning that that night she’d had Janie waiting in the wings, and that had been Ryder’s first encounter with the other girl.
“Is this true?”
“Yeah, it is.” He, too, seemed in deep contemplation as he thought back to the night while I wondered why Mary had gone to all that trouble. The hits kept coming, exposing the dark plot that had been concocted by Mary and Janie’s dad, along with Scott and Matt.
“I’m a little lost; I just don’t understand why they hate me so much.”
“I don’t think it was personal. I told you they needed you out of the way so they could use me, basically. She was just a tool they used, but if it wasn’t her, it would’ve been someone else, anyone they could use for their means.”
The car came to a stop, and one of the men said, “We’re here.” We were rushed into the building where thankfully, no one was waiting since I’ve been very lucky at keeping this place a secret, and it was then I realized that it had taken longer than it should have for us to get there, which meant they’d done some out maneuvering driving to escape the paparazzi.
Ryder and I went up in the elevator with our eyes still glued to the phone as the drama unfolded. Some of what was said I already knew, but there was so much that I didn’t, and I couldn’t look away. The poster that Ryder was convinced was the nieces didn’t interact with any of the naysayers but kept up a steady stream of information that painted Janie as an unhinged fan and Mary as a puppet master of sorts.
Then they got dirty. They exposed Mary’s tryst with Ryder when he was way too young. “O.M.G. Ryder, what is going on? I thought you said no one knew about that.”
“I thought so. This is….” It was clear that the person, even though they did not engage was there solely to defend Ryder and me.
The picture they painted was one of two young lovers torn apart by the greed and obsession of others. They didn’t stop there either because, by the time we made it into the apartment, they had gone after Nicole, Noel, and all of Mary’s kids. And then it became a shit show.
Things I could only have speculated about before were laid out for all the world to see. It was like a roadmap leading from one point to the next, showing all the ways Mary had manipulated the whole situation, and they did not show Janie in a good light.
She came off as desperate and pathetic to the point that I almost felt sorry for her. No one reading this would ignore it as just gossip, it read like facts, and that’s what made it so profound. I imagined news teams fact-checking every word as it unfolded.
They talked about Rachel and how she tampered with my medication, and it was then I learned that Rachel had been in federal custody for the last few days because, apparently, it’s a felony to tamper with someone’s medication.
“Oh no, what is she doing?” Even I knew that this was a bad move. Janie had just entered the fray.
***
*Janie*
I was sitting there staring at the empty walls trying to hold onto a thought, any thought, but my mind kept flitting from one scenario to the next. The highs and lows of emotion were tiring and vexing, to be sure. Now that I was in a rather stable situation, I wanted to get some sort of plan together, but I didn’t know where to start.
Ryder wasn’t answering my calls, my dad was missing, and there was no way I was going to call Mary or one of her daughters. Scott might be worth a shot, but I never kidded myself when it came to his real interest. Without Ryder under my thumb, he’d have no use for me.
I’m alone, all alone. Has it always been this way? I used to have friends, didn’t I? Yeah, way back when. I wish I could go back to the days of high school when I reigned supreme. But even then, I knew those friends didn’t really like me either; they just hung around me for the clout.