Our Broken Pieces - M.E. Clayton Page 0,25

have followed Gage Evans anywhere, everywhere.

But that afternoon, after I lied to everyone and told them I’d never speak to him again, my parents had taken my phone and my tablet and had driven me to the airport, where they had announced that my Aunt Rosie had agreed to let me stay with her for a while, until things ‘cooled down’. My parents and the school had planned everything out even before asking for my side. The school transfer had already been completed.

Aunt Rosie lived in Montana and not in the urban areas. I lived with her on an honest-to-God Montana ranch, with spotting wi-fi connection that she only used for her work computer. With only a landline to talk to my parents on, it wasn’t until two weeks later that I had managed to sneak onto my aunt’s work computer and reached out to Gage.

However, after logging onto every social media account I had, it was evidently clear that Gage hadn’t wanted to hear from me. I had been blocked from everything that was Gage Evans. He hadn’t wanted to hear my reasons. He hadn’t wanted an explanation. At the same time that I was still planning on running away with him, he was blocking me from his life.

Heartbreak really was a damaging sonofabitch.

Chapter 14

Gage~

She left me.

Mystic fucking left me.

No reason.

No explanation.

She caved to the pressure, and for that, Mystic Anderson was dead to me.

Mystic Anderson was dead to me, and she’d better hope I never lay eyes on her ever again.

Part

∞∞∞

II

Chapter 15

Mystic – (Ten Years Later)~

Mean girls sucked.

They were like vicious leeches sucking out everything good in the world. And-newsflash-they didn’t fade away after high school. Nope. They existed in college and well into adulthood. They were everywhere and there was no escaping them. From the cashier who looks down her nose at your coupons to socialites who snub anyone not wearing designer clothing.

Them. Bitches. Were. Everywhere.

And starting my first day at Cavanaugh Industries, I was quickly learning that they were here, too.

In droves.

Okay...maybe not in droves. But for someone who did her best to stay out of the limelight, one or two were one or two too many, in my opinion. I didn’t want to have to deal with territorial children, but I also wasn’t one to not stand up for myself, so I was hoping the resident mean girls at Cavanaugh Industries would find me boring enough to just let me be. I wasn’t holding out too much hope, though. Mean girls couldn’t be mean girls if they didn’t have victims, and I was fairly sure I was up to bat, being the new girl and all.

Of course, at twenty-eight-years-old, I was well past the age where being snubbed would send me running to the women’s restroom to cry myself stupid in an empty stall. These days, I had enough life experience to know that people not liking you was just a sad part of life. Some people clicked and some people didn’t, and that was okay. I also learned that the less people in your life, the less likely you were to get stabbed in the back. Even if I had no more secrets to keep, I still didn’t trust people. That happens when your family and friends betray you. However, that betrayal made me the strong woman I was today. Yeah, I might be cold, lonely, and empty, but I was no longer anyone’s doormat.

I had gotten my degree in business management, but that was as far as my ambitions had gone. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice myself for others anymore, so I didn’t. All I wanted was to earn a wage to support myself and screw the rest.

For ten years, it worked for me until Marksman Financial fell into a decline and we were forced to look for other jobs. Stanley Marksman had led a successful financial powerhouse, but once he retired and his good-for-nothing son had taken over, well, let’s just say business took a backseat to an extravagant partying lifestyle. Stanley Jr. had driven his father’s company into the ground, and no one escaped unscathed from Stanley Jr.’s misdirection.

After looking for a job for two months, I finally landed a position as one of the many administrative assistants for Cavanaugh Industries. It didn’t pay as much as what I was making at Marksman Financial, but at Marksman’s I’d had ten years of seniority and raises, where here I’d be starting near the bottom. I was essentially going to be an assistant’s