Heartbreak Lover (Broken Hearts Academy #2) - C.R. Jane Page 0,79
I can stop the pain that is coursing through me. I already know this one will bruise. I’ll have to wear an extra layer of makeup to cover it up when Gentry forces me to meet him at the country club tomorrow. After all, we wouldn’t want anyone at the club to know that our lives are anything less than perfect.
The song is still going and somehow the pain I hear in Tanner’s voice hurts me more than the pain blossoming across my cheek. Would it not hurt them as much if they knew everything I had told them to sever our connection permanently was a lie? Would they even care at this point that I had done it to set them free, to stop them from being dragged down into the hell I never seemed to be able to escape from? At night, when I lay in bed, listening to the sound of Gentry sleeping peacefully as if the world was perfect and monsters didn’t exist, I told myself that it would matter.
“Get up,” snaps Gentry, yanking me up from the floor. I’m really off my game tonight by lingering. Nothing makes Gentry madder than when I “wallow” as he calls it. As I stumble out of the room, my head spinning a bit from the force of the hit, a sick part of me thinks it was worth it, just so I could hear the end of their song.
Later that night, long after I should have fallen asleep, my mind plays back what little of the performance I saw earlier. I wonder if Jensen still gets severe stage fright before he performs. I wonder if Jesse still keeps his lucky guitar pick in his pocket during performances. I wonder who Tanner gets his good luck kiss from now.
It all hurts too much to contemplate for too long so I grab the Ambien I keep on my bedside table for when I can’t sleep, which is often, and I drift off into a dreamland filled with a silver eyed boy who speaks straight to my soul.
The next morning comes too early and I struggle to wake up when Gentry’s alarm goes off. Ambien always leaves me groggy and I haven’t decided what’s better, being exhausted from not sleeping, or taking half the day to wake up all the way.
Throwing a robe on, I blurrily walk to the kitchen to get Gentry’s protein shake ready for him to take with him to the gym.
I’m standing in front of the blender when Gentry comes up behind me and puts his arms around me, as if the night before never happened. I’m very still, not wanting to make any sudden movement just in case he takes it the wrong way.
“Meet me at the club for lunch,” he asks, running his nose up the side of my neck and eliciting shivers...the wrong kind of shivers. He’s using his charming voice, the one that always gets everyone to do what he wants. It stopped working on me a long time ago.
“Of course,” I tell him, turning in his arms and giving him a wide, fake smile. What else would my answer be when I know the consequences of going against Gentry’s wishes?
“Good,” he says with satisfaction, placing a quick, sharp kiss on my lips before stepping away.
I pour the blended protein shake into a cup and hand it to him. “11:45?” I ask. He nods and waves goodbye as he walks out of the house to head to the country club gym where he’ll spend the next several hours working out with his friends, flirting with the girls that work out there, and overall acting like the overwhelming douche that he is.
I don’t relax until the sound of the car fades into the distance. After eating a protein shake myself (Gentry doesn’t approve of me eating carbs), I start my chores for the day before I have to get ready to meet him at the country club.
My hands are red and raw from washing the dishes twice. Everything was always twice. Twice bought me time and ensured there wouldn’t be anything left behind. An errant fleck of food, a spot that hadn’t been rinsed – these were things he’d notice.
Hours later, I’ve vacuumed, swept, done the laundry, and cleaned all the bathrooms. Gentry could easily afford a maid, but he likes me to “keep busy” as he puts it, so I do everything in this house of horrors. I repeat the same things every