Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Heather goes quiet as the door swings open. Our professor steps out and crosses the front of the room to the podium. Her heels click on the wood floors as the room goes quiet.
She demands respect, and we give it.
When she begins the lesson, I lean forward to make sure I don’t miss a word.
I’m so engrossed in the lecture that I don’t notice Heather whispering to me, or that the teacher has stopped speaking and every eye in the classroom is on me.
Heather bumps my arm, and I snap out of my trance.
“Please, Ms. Hart, don’t let us keep you.” The professor points at my bag, and the sound registers.
My phone is ringing. I forgot to silence it.
“Please answer the phone.” Her tone is harsh.
This isn’t good. The semester has only just started, and my professor already hates me. She made a speech on the first day of class, warning us to silence our phones or live to regret it. Now I understand precisely what she meant by that.
That’s the problem with taking a class in your major. The classes are smaller, so the professors know you.
Especially here at Ludlow, a small, private college. Everyone in the department knows me.
The phone keeps ringing, and I have to hit the little button. I don’t want to, but I also know I have no choice.
“On speaker. So everyone can hear who so rudely interrupted my lecture.”
I pull it out and instantly cringe when I see the word Erin on the screen. This is going to be bad. There is no telling what she will say.
“Answer it.”
So, I do.
I press the button.
The sound of my heartbeat drums in my ears.
Then I hear the familiar sound of Erin sniffling, and I want to melt into the chair.
Erin is about to go on a crazy, dramatic rant for my class to hear.
I look up at the professor, imploring her not to make me do this, trying desperately to convey that I’ve learned my lesson.
But she only smiles at me. One that says I sealed my own fate.
I don’t interrupt my sister.
Instead, I wait for her.
But the words she says are not what I expect.
And as she says them . . .
My hand opens. My fingers slip. And the phone crashes to the floor.
“Ronald is dead.”
2
Payton
* * *
I can’t believe Ronald is dead. After finally learning what happened to him, the sense of relief I thought I would get isn’t there. It hurts.
I never expected this reaction.
A part of me always assumed he left us because my sister did something to him. That she hurt his pride, but eventually, he’d lick his wounds, come back, and apologize. But that wasn’t the case at all.
Instead, I found out everything was a lie.
That’s the hardest part about sitting here. I’m grieving for him, but I’m also having a hard time reconciling all the truths that have come out since Erin’s phone call.
I’m out of place.
I know absolutely no one but my sister.
From where I sit in the back of the church, I watch the front row. People who I assume are his family sit side by side in the pew closest to Ronald’s coffin. They must be related to him since they always reserve the front row for family. Not the back row. The back row is reserved for people like us.
People who sneak in, hoping no one recognizes them for what they are . . .
Homewreckers.
There is no way to sugarcoat what we are.
The truth stabs me in my chest.
The lie my sister kept from me all these years is finally out in the open for me to fully understand.
Ronnie was never our Ronnie.
He was their dad.
Someone else’s husband.
I stare at the people I assume are his daughter and son.
A blond woman and a handsome man are sitting in the front row. Beside them, an older woman weeps into a handkerchief.
The person he promised to share a life with. That’s the part I have a hard time reconciling. Watching them hold each other is a dagger in my heart.
He said he loved us. He said he loved me and he’d take care of us.
It was all a lie.
That voice in my head hasn’t shut up all week.
Beside me, I hear my sister huff. The sound grates on my nerves. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.
She knew.
I might have been ignorant, but she always knew.
She’s staring at his family too, but instead of remorse over the part we’ve played in their lives, she’s shooting daggers at them.
“They can cry all they want. Wait until they find out the money is mine,” she mumbles to herself. I turn to face her, shocked by what she just said, and she shrugs. “What? I put up with that man for almost ten years of my life. It’s time to get my money.”