The Boyfriend Experience (The Boyfriend Experience 1)

He cast her a quick, curious look. “How so?”

“First, it started with snide comments, usually having to do with how I dressed compared to her or what she had that I didn’t, not that any of that honestly mattered to me. We went to the same high school, and that’s when it got worse. She started stupid, embarrassing rumors about me. She did things in the hallway or classrooms to humiliate me in front of my friends and put me down in sly, underhanded ways. It was . . . rough,” she said, hating those years in school because of her cousin’s bullying tactics.

“Why didn’t you say something to your parents about what she was doing?” Eric asked, his tone sympathetic, which made her cringe inside because she didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. “I’m sure if they’d known how Raquel was treating you, they would have talked to your aunt and uncle about the situation and put a stop to it.”

She breathed out. “I did tell them. Once. When I was about thirteen and she’d put gum in my hair after I just had it cut in a pretty new style that I loved,” she said, recalling the painful event that had resulted in her having to chop another four inches off the length of the hair she’d so painstakingly grown out for two years, all because the glob of gum had been so badly matted in the strands. “My aunt and uncle asked Raquel what happened, and she claimed it was all an accident and I was being a tattletale because I wanted to get her in trouble.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, angry on her behalf. “How does someone accidentally put gum in someone’s hair?”

“I’m not sure, but Raquel managed to convince them she had,” she said. “So, after that, knowing my aunt and uncle wouldn’t do anything to stop her behavior, I just did my best to avoid her whenever I could.”

She paused for a moment, twisting her fingers anxiously in her lap before getting the rest of the story out in the open. “After high school, I went to beauty school to get my cosmetology license because I really liked cutting and styling hair, and that year during a family holiday get-together, Raquel came up to me when no one else was around and said that it was great that I was going to beauty school to make other people as pretty as possible because I understood how it felt to be less than attractive.”

She saw Eric’s jaw drop open, then snap shut. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he glanced at her with a fierce scowl. “She’s a fucking piece of work, isn’t she?”

His rhetorical question didn’t need a response. Evie’s stomach twisted into a knot as she gathered the fortitude to share the last and final situation involving her cousin because it was the most critical part of the story. “There’s one more important thing you need to know. About five years ago, the two of us were at a wedding for a friend of the family, and there was a good-looking guy there named Graham North, who started talking to me. I was kind of surprised he singled me out, because I was sitting at the same table as my cousin and kept waiting for him to switch his attention to her, because that’s what I was used to when it came to men and Raquel,” she said with a small laugh. “They always ended up choosing her over me.

“She attempted to flirt with him, and while Graham was polite to her, he was genuinely interested in me, which made her furious, because guys did not ignore someone as beautiful as Raquel. Even after Graham and I started dating, at family functions she’d single him out and didn’t hesitate to tease him or touch him or laugh in that coquettish way that grated on my nerves because I knew she wanted nothing more than to have Graham break up with me for her.”

The nausea in her stomach increased, and she pushed through it. “Graham and I were together for almost three years, and I thought we’d end up getting married. After graduating with my cosmetology license, I worked at a salon in Fresno, and I was at the shop long hours because I was trying to build my clientele, but at the end of our time together, I started noticing that Graham was becoming emotionally distant and withdrawn, and when I made time for us to spend together, he always had an excuse as to why he was busy. He started working out, which was something he’d never done in the past, as well as dressing differently, and just . . . changing into a guy who was overly concerned with his looks. He texted and called less often. Sex became nonexistent, which he blamed on my work schedule, and I started feeling so guilty about everything, like I was letting him down.”