Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“I told her to leave. She had to go. She betrayed us,” Conway continues. “Used us for her story. Everything we shared, everything we trusted her with, is all out there now… published in that damned magazine.”
I remain silent, the weight of his words settling over me even though I knew they were coming. The room erupts into a cacophony of voices, each expressing their anger, disappointment, and hurt. Phones are found, and the article is brought up to read. I sit back, absorbing it all, the image of Grace’s tear-streaked face as she drove away, replaying in my mind.
By the time the coffee’s brewed and the bacon is hitting plates, Lennon’s reading parts of the article from his phone. Dylan’s jaw is tight enough to fracture teeth. McCartney leans over his shoulder, his expression grave. “What the hell is this? This isn’t the article she wrote. I read it from start to finish.”
Dylan scrapes his chair back, standing and pressing his hands to the table. “She wrote about Nora, about my kids. Like I’m some joke who can’t keep his family together. This… this is bullshit.”
Corbin puts his phone down slowly, his eyes dark with something deeper than anger—betrayal. “She wrote about Sadie,” he says quietly. “Things I told her in confidence.”
Conway doesn’t say a word as he stares out the window like it’s taking everything in him to restrain himself.
“She didn’t write this,” McCartney says again. “It has her name and picture next to it, but this isn’t her voice. Not even close.”
“She wrote the first draft,” Conway says. “And the notes that someone else has used to craft it. Doesn’t matter if she typed the final words or not. This got out through her. Period. She’s the Editor-in-Chief. There’s no way she didn’t know what was getting printed. This was all about finding the best possible clickbait stories and nothing about helping us.”
The silence that follows is leaden. Heavy. The final nail in a coffin.
And that’s when I speak.
“She didn’t want this,” I say, my voice cutting through the air like a whip crack. “I saw her face when she left. That wasn’t someone proud of a hit piece. She was gutted and betrayed. I don’t believe she knew about the switch in the content of the article.”
All eyes turn to me.
“She made mistakes,” I continue. “Writing things she wasn’t intending to share in the article. Trusting colleagues who put their own interests ahead of Grace and ours. But we’ve all made mistakes and forgiven each other time and time again. And if we throw Grace away because of one misstep, one she didn’t even control, we don’t deserve what we’ve been asking for.”
“Daddy,” Eli says, dashing into the kitchen, clutching something in her hand.
Dylan holds his arms out for her as she barely stops before crashing into her. “We’re talking, sweetheart,” he says.
“But look.” She holds a bundle of papers fixed together with string.
Dylan takes it and glances at the front. “The Adventures of Cowboy Chicken. What is this?”
“Grace must have made it. Look inside. It’s our story. She wrote it all out and even drew some pictures.” She screws up her nose. “The pictures aren’t very good. Uncle McCartney could do better, but the story is the one we all made up.”
Harrison reaches out for the bundle, shaking his head and smiling at first, then growing solemn.
“She brought so much to all of us,” he says. “We won’t find anyone to rival her. We have to get her back.”
The makeshift book, a sweet memento created for the kids in this house, inspired by their imaginations, passes from man to man, and I lean back, arms crossed, waiting, because what comes next will decide everything.
46
GRACE
I’m back in my apartment, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. The walls are still the same washed-out white, and the books stacked by the armchair are still in the same crooked piles I left them in. My boots are by the door; city boots, clean, polished, and unused. My bed is still crisply made and untouched like no one ever sleeps here. Like I never did.
The coffee in my cup has turned bitter and cold. I haven’t drunk it. I keep holding it because it gives my hands something to do other than reaching for my phone. It’s facedown on the windowsill next to me, quiet and black. A viper waiting to strike. I haven’t checked it since I left the ranch, ignoring messages, emails, and news alerts since the article hit and my life fell apart.
Even if I wanted to, how can I go back to work when my CEO and deputy gutted and sensationalized my story and ruined my name? My mind is a flashing reel of everything I’ve written since I graduated. All the stupid articles about inconsequential shit that I don’t care about. They might have been asinine, but at least I could always hear my voice behind them, my twist on even the more trivial of subjects. But what Rianna turned my piece into sounded like someone else. Cold and tabloid-trash cruel.