Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 119476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 597(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 597(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Did I tell you she quit her job to be with him? Rand says a woman’s place is in the house, not the workforce, and she just listened like she didn’t spend twelve years in school and another seven building her practice from the ground up.
I’m not sure if aliens are real or not, but if so, I think one might be controlling my mom. It’s like I don’t even know her anymore. Honestly, I’m not sure I want to.
Because what kind of mom marries a man who doesn’t even like her daughter?
I have to go now. It’s time to walk down the stupid, tainted aisle.
Crushed, Nora
Dear Diary,
You know the saying “what else could go wrong?”
Well, Dad used to always say phrases like that only served to tempt the universe into piling on more bad, and I guess I must have thrown it out there one too many times, because things have gone from bad to worse to absolutely awful.
This time last year, I thought the hardest thing I’d ever face was losing my dad, but I was wrong, because losing Mom while she’s still living and breathing and under the same roof as me is twenty times harder.
They’ve only been married for a month, but I swear, it’s like he lobotomized her or something. Mom has turned into some kind of Stepford Wife.
She makes him breakfast every morning, cleans the house all day, and has dinner on the table by the time he gets home each night.
At first, I ate dinner with them, but then Rand decided it should just be him and Mom at the table each night. He said my sullenness made the food taste bitter.
Stupidly, I thought my mom would stick up for me. But she just nodded and sent me into the kitchen to finish my roast.
You’d think that’d be the worst of it, but just wait, diary, because there’s a freaking cherry dripping its nasty juice all over the top of the crap-sundae that is my life.
For some reason, Rand thinks that a “troubled young girl” should study at home.
That’s right, he’s making mom homeschool me—and she’s just going along with it like a freaking zombie. I hate it here, and I hate him. Even worse, I’m scared I’m starting to hate her a little, too.
Helplessly, Nora
Dear Diary,
I’m a week deep into hell—and by that, I mean homeschool—and if I thought I was lonely at my old school… well, let’s just say I’m to the point where I’d gladly listen to Kelsey and Eliza laugh at me if it meant I was around other people and outside of these four walls.
How pathetic am I, that I’d rather subject myself to my former friends making fun of me than to stay here one more minute?
I guess it doesn’t really matter, though, because Rand has Mama convinced I’ll end up pregnant or on drugs if I leave the house. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never even kissed a boy, because his word is law, which means I’m on house arrest.
Does that make him my warden or my stepfather?
In the end it doesn’t matter what he is to me, because he’s made it more than clear I’m nothing to him. Which wouldn’t be so bad if Mama didn’t look at him like he hung the moon.
What does she even see in him anyway?
He’s controlling, manipulative, and mean as a snake. I’m only fifteen, and I can clearly see that Rand’s a walking red flag, so why can’t Mama?
What’s so good about him that she’d pick him over me?
She doesn’t even teach me during our allotted homeschool hours! She says that Rand said the lessons are self-guided. It almost seems like he wants to drive a wedge between us.
I don’t get it. Mama and I should be a packaged deal, but every day we’re here, I feel more and more like the dented can they tossed in on sale.
I’m so annoyed I’m not even sure that made sense, but whatever. It doesn’t matter. Maybe none of this matters…
Clearly, I don’t matter.
Forgotten, Nora
Dear Diary,
I… He… He hit me. Rand hit me, and I haven’t stopped crying since.
Mama cried, too, and then sent me to my room. Her not sticking up for me hurts worse than his palm stinging my cheek.
It used to be Rand just ignored me as long as I kept out of his way, but a few weeks ago he started saying mean things to me whenever Mama wasn’t around. He started telling me I was worthless and unwanted, how he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.
I did my best to ignore him, but tonight I overheard him calling Mama ugly names and I snapped. Honestly, I’m not even sure why it made me so mad. It’s not like she stuck up for me.
But he was mad she burned the rolls. Like big mad. He threw the entire dish across the room so hard it rattled the walls. He told her if she was going to be a freeloading bitch, the least she could do is make his dinner right.