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)
“At least I’m not named after an eighties cartoon character.”
“Your name is Reginald!”
“That’s a legit name!”
“A shitty one!” I snap his phone off and try to shove it in my pocket, but he’s too fast. He snatches it back. Ugh, so much for the evidence.
“Reginald,” I press, trying to force air through my nose. “I need to calm down, and while I’m breathing, I need you to tell me exactly how much of this is true.”
“Oh.” He cracks a relieved smile. “That’s easy.” Here it is. Typical Reg. The whole world is one big ha fucking ha. “All of it.”
My stomach crashes straight to my toes, which I think is probably bad for digestion. “How?! How could you have stolen money from me, my parents, and my granny?” I splutter, but there’s no way I’m not having this out. “She’s in a nursing home! Don’t you have any shame? How could you have told a bunch of thugs that I’m rich? I’m not rich. It’s the other way around. Your family has all the money!”
“My dad cut my mom off a few months ago. That’s when I made it my business to figure out your banking shit, and I’m sorry, but your parents and granny’s computers are just way too easy to get onto. They have their passwords saved. They didn’t even notice when I reset them and resaved them.”
“They’re old! They can’t remember everything. How could you do this? My parents have worked so hard and have almost nothing to show for it. My grandma has the nursing home to pay for, plus there’s all the medications that she needs.” I don’t need to say anything on my behalf about how hard I’ve worked for the meager savings I have.
Had.
I’m going to stroke out. Right here, right now. This is how I die.
No. This is not how you die, Amalphia Marisan Winthrope. You are stronger than this. Mega muscle power to match the mega pep-talk voice. That’s me. I’ve just been dying for your brain to need me, and here I am. He is not going to win. He won’t get away with this.
I wish the voice in my head were less of a cheesy victim from every shitty situation in every horrible movie ever. This can’t be me. I can’t be the first person to die in this horror.
“You need to get out of here,” Reg warns, and cue the horrible crashing of my brain back into reality. “Those thugs are going to come looking for me, and when they find out I lied to them…”
“They’re coming here?” I squeak. “You led them right to me, and you’re just going to bail?”
“I did come to give you a warning. I could have just fled the scene. I came back here. That has to count for something. I wasted valuable time when I could have been fleeing. I should have just called, but that seemed like a cowardly thing to do.”
There’s no guru on earth who could help me breathe through this.
Judging from the worried look on Reg’s face, he’s weighing just how smart it is to still be standing here. Luckily, he chose the living room, and there weren’t many sharp objects to hand.
“Okay, well…I’m sorry. Really, I am, but I have to peace out now.”
He shoves his phone back into his jeans and dodges straight to the TV. One sharp yank frees his game console. I’m too stunned to even process it as he shoves it into a reusable grocery bag—my bag with the goofy cat heads all over it—and rams in controllers and games. He slings it over his shoulder like a villainous reverse Santa and races out of the apartment. He doesn’t even bother to shut the door behind him.
When I get myself together enough to check it, it’s gaping open.
Why bother shutting and locking it? That’s not going to keep the kind of men who are after him out of my life. It’s not going to stop them from coming after me, and when they find out I don’t have the money? What are they going to do? Break my legs? Do they even still do that? I can think of at least ten things that would be worse and a thousand other ways of terrifying and haunting a person.
How did I not see this coming?
Okay, not this specifically, because who on earth would think something like this could ever be a real thing? But why didn’t I kick Reg out of my life months ago? Am I really so weak and stupid that—
No.
I am not playing the victim game.
Not right now. This situation doesn’t call for weak ass waterworks and self-blame. There’s no magic time machine I can stuff myself into to go back and minimize the regret of my last four years. If I’d never met my ex, there never would have been a Reg. I’m so freaking sure about that. If only I could go find twenty-year-old me and warn her to steer clear. I’d buy her some fantastic vibrators and tell her to have a blast. Stay single at ALL FREAKING COSTS. And never, ever allow another person near your family’s home computers.