Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I was also slightly defensive about it, which was why the words slipped off my lips before I could pull them back.
“I’m sure he would fix those, too, if you’d ask.”
“Yeah, because I’m sure he just goes around fixing credit like this all the time.” I rolled my eyes.
“Actually, funny you should say that. Because there are a pair of sisters that had the same issue with their mother. Though their mother actually ruined their credit. They’re really good friends of Apollo. He was just telling me about it last week when we were in a group phone chat with Romeo.”
“Why were you in a group phone chat with Romeo?” I asked as I pulled the comforter up over myself.
He watched me painfully pull it up while trying to not jostle my body and took pity on me by tucking me in while explaining.
“We all try to meet up at least once a week. We checked in with him via phone, seeing as he’s in Oregon with Mable,” Creed commented. “Long story short, we have some issues, and Apollo likes to make sure that we’re all alive and well.”
I wondered what those issues were, but since I didn’t want him butting into my issues, I sure as heck wasn’t going to ask him about his.
Though, he probably wouldn’t tell me about those issues anyway.
“Anyway, something was brought up on Romeo’s end about how Mable felt awful for forcing Apollo to fix y’all’s issues with your mother and whatever the fuck she did to ruin y’all’s lives. And he started telling us about his good friends, Silver and Aella. I think y’all’s situation is a bit worse than theirs was. And their mother didn’t pit the two of them against each other like yours did. And their dad wasn’t in the picture like yours is. But they still had credit issues that he happily fixed because he finds it entertaining.”
If you could call having a dad that wanted nothing to do with you and everything to do with your stepsister…I mentally cut myself off from that line of thinking.
That never got me anywhere, and we were trying to get ahead of our past traumas.
“Well, seeing as I’m not anyone to him, this is a moot point, isn’t it?” I asked. “I’m alive. You really don’t have to stay.”
He studied me for a long time, and while he was doing that, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the pain that was pounding my head.
Seriously, I should’ve never gotten up.
I should’ve let that phone ring if he was going to let himself in anyway.
“I’ll let you go to bed,” he said. “But I’m not leaving.”
I shrugged. “See you later then.”
He understood a dismissal when he heard one and left, leaving me alone to wallow in my pain and misery—the misery being what a shitshow my life had become.
It was pure crazy to me that a girl who worked her ass off to go to school to become a doctor could be this far gone in terms of her life.
I should have the entire world ahead of me, and instead I had loan debt, parent issues, sisters who semi-tolerated me, and a single friend.
What kind of life was that?
And what, really, did I have to look forward to when every single odd was stacked against me?
Five
Underestimate me. That’ll be fun.
—Creed’s secret thoughts
Creed
I tossed the blanket to the back of the couch, once again wrinkling my nose at the smell of overwhelming aftershave, and stood up.
My gaze went to the small house, and I studied it with a critical eye.
There was a whole lot of nothing here.
She had a couch but no coffee table. A television, but no stand to put it on. She had no decorations on the wall, but several vases on the floor with shriveled flowers in them. Her kitchen wasn’t much better. She had all the essentials that she needed, like flour and sugar and salt. But all of them were in their original containers on the kitchen counter.
A very small kitchen counter that was not only holding dishes and cooking wares, but also other things that would normally go into the drawers.
Out of curiosity, I went to the drawers to pull them out to see what was inside, only to find no bottom to the drawers. Just an empty hole where the wood backing should’ve been.
I opened the cabinets next only to find toilet paper, laundry detergent, and hair products?
What the hell?
That had my curiosity running wild, so I headed to the bathroom next to find a pedestal sink and a toilet.
That was it.
The toilet paper was resting on the back of the toilet. There was a red glass cup holding toothpaste and a toothbrush.
And that was it.
She didn’t even have a bathroom mirror, but a small, handheld mirror held up on the wall with a thumbtack.