“Where are you going?” I genuinely wanted to know as I was going to miss him. We’ve eaten lunch together every day for almost a month.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart; I’ll be back before you know it.” He cupped the back of my head in his hand and leaned down to kiss me before heading for the door.
GENEVIEVE
G regory didn’t return to work that afternoon but called to tell me he had a driver downstairs to pick me up and bring me to his place. We pulled up to a whole lot of movement outside his door. There was an ambulatory vehicle with a couple of nurses and other personnel. I was about to think the worst when I saw Susan being wheeled out on a stretcher and loaded into the back of the van.
A car came to a screeching halt, and I turned around to see a fuming Darla-Sue hop out of her car just as her dad came to the door and stepped outside. I’m not sure he saw her because he came to me and kissed me, “Hello!”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Before he could answer, Darla-Sue rushed over and pulled me away from him.
“What’s going on, dad? Why are you kicking mom out of the house?”
“I’ve already explained. Your grandparents are more than willing to take you both in.”
“But I don’t want to move.”
“I think it’s for the best; after the way you acted this morning and over the weekend, I think we need some space. Besides, Jenna is moving in, and after the way you acted, I don’t think you two should be around each other.”
“I won’t go; this is my house too; I won’t let you kick me out.”
“Wrong, this is my home; you’re my adult daughter who is more than capable of living on your own. Jenna, go inside; let me deal with this.”
I sidestepped around Darla-Sue, who looked ready to scalp me, and headed inside.
How juvenile would it be of me to turn back in the doorway and stick my tongue out at her? This house, the house she and her mother had put so much stock in, was now off-limits to them both. This house had been a badge of their place in our local society. It was the house everyone wanted, where all Susan’s and Darla-Sue’s friends used to gravitate, the house where I was never welcomed except for that one time when I was tricked into being here to meet my demise.
I didn’t dare show my ass yet; there was still a long way to go. She hadn’t been humiliated enough yet, hadn’t been left out in the cold. I can’t stop; I won’t stop until I’d broken her the way she’d broken me.
Susan, I’d already taken care of long ago. Because I always knew my plans for the two of them, I’d kept track of them through social media. It’s because of that that I’d learned about her mother’s affair all those years ago. I’d hacked into her messages and seen the saucy nudes and the talk of meeting where and when.
It had been almost too good to be true, especially when one of their rendezvous was at a hotel not far from my campus, miles away. What luck for me that Darla-Sue was going to school not far from me and her mother used visiting her as an excuse to carry on her affair.
It wasn’t hard finding out their room number that first time or to realize that they take the same one each time for whatever reason. So the next time they met, I booked that very room the day before and spent the night setting up hidden cameras.
I’d used the videos I caught to take still photos, which is what I’d sent to the local newspaper and plastered all over Facebook and everywhere else using a dummy account, of course. I’d been the one to make the phone call that sent her rushing from the house and caused her accident. Now that was a fluke. But I can’t say that I’m sorry. If she hadn’t been in an all-fired hurry to go see her lover, who was with another woman at the time, she would’ve been paying attention to the road.
Of course, I hadn’t told her that the woman was me and that I was just there for an interview for a job I didn’t want with his company. I might’ve been right about his cheating, though, because he was hitting on me when he got the call about the accident and was willing to brush it off if I went to the nearest hotel with him. No thanks!
MR. JARVIS
“I’M VERY disappointed in you. I thought you’d outgrown your mean girl phase, but what was that. Why the hell have you been acting like a spoiled child?”
“How could you, dad? How could you choose her over me?”