It had to be said: I obviously didn’t have a lot of time for Eric after finding him having sex with Amber. Any feelings that could be considered remotely positive – and I was including not giving a shit about the man as being positive – withered after he attacked me. But now, the anger and hatred for him were almost smothering me. And I had my parents to thank for this shit.
This twenty-one shit was a real pain in the ass, but I didn’t have the same worries that I had before about it being the year I was killed off.
Now it was a period of growth, and I was counting the days until I turned twenty-two.Chapter TwelveLeviThe list of things currently giving me a pain in the ass was longer than Santa’s good list. So far, off the top of my head I had:
- Eric and everything associated with him
- Kari
- Rich and Beau
- Archer and Bonnie
- Parker and Ariana
- Not being able to hear Charlotte’s voice
- Work
- The adult side of being an adult, i.e. having to act responsibly and not just being able to strangle Eric
- My family
That was a good start, but like the chunk of ice that the Titanic hit, it was only the tip of the iceberg.
When we’d gotten the call about the sighting of Eric, we’d moved quickly to get to where they all were. In all honesty, I think part of it was being hopeful that we’d come across him first and get to deal with him ourselves, but that was more of an unspoken thing.
Then I’d had to put up with various dramas, including Kari, instead of being able to focus on Lottie. It’s like someone had put up a notice that the Oscar awards this year were open to the public, so everyone was trying to be the lucky winner.
The most frustrating part was that I could only fix one of the problems tonight, that’s all I had the power to do, but I’d definitely done that.
While Lily and Dahlia were whispering to Lottie, I’d taken the opportunity to tell Kari that I knew what she was doing and that there wasn’t a chance in hell of it happening. I’d sweetened that with the addition of telling her parents what she got up to last year with someone who was now spending eight years in prison – not that she’d been involved in his crimes, that I was aware of at least. No, Kari had been enjoying the money of the man who’d conned five women out of their savings, and when she’d been questioned over his whereabouts she’d omitted to tell the authorities that he was handcuffed to her bed at that exact moment.
How did I know this? Her former maid was the wife of one of the men who worked for our company and was now employed by my family, after losing her job for telling the police that she’d seen him on the premises one night when she was questioned by them. Apparently Kari hadn’t much liked her rich lover being incarcerated and had terminated Fiona’s employment.
Somehow, she’d managed to talk her way out of being charged for hiding a criminal, and her parents were none the wiser about the situation. Probably for the best considering her father’s position as the CEO of their family owned investment company who boasted some well-known clients.
Putting my list of issues aside – Charlotte had enough problems going on and had been hurt enough in the past. I wasn’t going to add to that or let someone who had absolutely no importance in my life do it either. So, easy come, easy go, and that was one thing crossed off the list.
Which led me to now, driving Charlotte home. We’d all decided shortly after she’d completed her online purchase that it was time to go home. I wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or fear, but it felt like we were being watched from the second we left the bar, so now I was scanning the road constantly in case something jumped out at us.
Having someone stalk your girlfriend isn’t like how it happens in a horror movie. You don’t get the scary music, you don’t get to see the buildup to the big scene, it’s all an unknown. The tension is always there, and it builds up inside you. I can’t even count the amount of times I woke up at night to check the house, or jumped out of bed because I thought I’d heard something.
It went without saying that my family weren’t strangers to shit like this – which was the understatement of the year – and if there’s one thing I learned from all of what we’d been through was that staying stagnant wasn’t the answer. Part of what the person wanted was fear, it made them feel powerful and fueled them. It also made you easy to find because you were predictable. No, the key to winning the war was to make it look like they weren’t affecting you. Obviously you needed to take the extra measures to ensure your safety, but being unpredictable kept them off balance.