Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Fuck. Fuck my life.
I said I wasn’t going there, but my brain is on a vicious loop, trending into one holy hell of a downward spiral. All I can think about is my family. My parents. My poor granny. If I don’t make this right, it’s not just my life that is going to be ruined beyond repair.
What would I do if I was a master villain?
I never thought I’d be uttering that statement, even in my mind, but here I am. I’d outsmart Reg and beat him at his own game. I’d see his amateur hour and raise it with the blackest pitch of evil. Oh, yes. This is sweet, innocent, naïve, kicked when I’m already down Amalphia entering her villain era.
See how bad this is? Now, I’m thinking about myself in the third person.
I expect some sort of crashing music to come blasting through the apartment or a sudden eclipse of the sun outside, but nope. It’s silent in here other than the fridge buzzing annoyingly like it always does and all the regular weekend apartment noises when everyone is home. It’s still Sunday afternoon. Time hasn’t changed. The sun didn’t fall from the sky, and it’s not raining blood. No pentagram magically appeared on the floor, and no demons have been summoned.
I breathe out a sigh of relief. For a second there, I was worried I’d sold my soul.
Then again, if it would help…
There’s a pink pad of paper on the fridge with a cartoon cat on top and flower boards along the sides and bottom. The pen at the side fits into a little plastic holder. I tear off a sheet, click the pen open, and slam my ass down on the old floral chair at the seventies table. It’s seen prettier days, but it used to belong to my grandma. When she had to downsize to move into the nursing home, I took as much of her furniture as I could cram into this miniscule apartment. Nostalgia is a thing for me. This table played a starring role in my childhood. I couldn’t let it go to a thrift store or, worse, some dumpster when they deemed it not good enough to sell.
Brainstorming is laughable right now, but I jot down the first solutions that come to mind.
Find someone who deals in soul contracts.
I cross that off immediately. It’s not realistic. Curses and magic, if they are a thing, aren’t something I can start dabbling in now. I need a much more immediate, realistic solution.
Take out a loan.
Except who would give me one? I couldn’t even qualify for a mortgage on my waitress’ salary. I tried. Several times. I doubt the local loan marts are going to lend me more than five hundred bucks, and I’m sure whatever Reg owes is much, much more.
How does one even find an underground fight club slash casino? Seriously. WTF, with all the emphasis on the F.
Borrow from a friend.
Okay, that’s not a great solution, seeing as all my friends are pretty much as broke as I am. But then the little human brain lightbulb thing pings off like an alarm inside my skull.
Find Reg’s rich dad and get him to pay what his son owes.
I literally put it in writing like I’m scared the words might just vaporize out of my brain and cease to be.
Reg’s mom whined a few months ago about getting cut off. Something about Reg aging out, not living at home anymore, and not choosing to pursue college. At the time, I was trying to tune her out. Cotton balls stuffed deep into ear canals and doubling up with noise-canceling headphones wouldn’t have been enough to tune her out. Right now might be the only time I’ve ever been glad for it.
I used to feel sorry for Reg having to basically parent his mom. Maybe I still do. If she’d raised him like a mom instead of…well, okay, I’m not judging, but he didn’t have much of a parental influence in his life. It’s hard to feel any kind of sympathy for him now that he’s waved his true colors right in my face to the tune of destroying my life and my family’s lives right along with it.
Walking bundle of red flags much?
Alas, it’s too late for foresight. No, I wish. Hindsight, I mean.
Any sight.
How does one go about finding one’s ex-boyfriend’s father?
I drop my head into my hands and rack my barely functioning brain for any mention Reg ever made of his dad. Namely, a name.
I pretty much have a photographic memory, and it’s like scrolling back up a screen, going back through old saved videos, and busting out old photos. I’m nowhere near the level some people are, but that’s the way I store memories. It’s not a neat filing cabinet by any means. More like a chaotic hot mess that’s been thrown into disarray by the fact that I’m sitting here in this chair and sweating out half my body weight in perspiration at the thought of burly thugs coming and tearing me limb from limb at any minute.