Page 37 of My Bully's Crush: Vol1
*Elena*
It took me a couple of days to feel at ease again after running from my vacation.The first thing I did was throw myself into the new project, a TV series, the first in many years since the last and a completely different genre than I was accustomed to, which helped to keep my mind off of my real life because it took all of my attention.
It was only at night, back in my apartment in the new city where I was left alone with my own thoughts, that I relived that moment of seeing him in the crowd.I might have gotten over it sooner rather than later had the tabloids not gotten ahold of it somehow with a whole ass picture that was planted on the front page of every damn Pop magazine, not to mention the Internet.
For weeks it was all people would talk about, and since his face was pretty well hidden behind the mask, there were teams of people trying to dissect the image frame by frame to prove its authenticity.He might’ve escaped, we both might’ve, with just a still image, but of course, my life can never be this simple.Someone had a video.
Of course, they did!Now it was my reaction to the stranger with the hoodie pulled up over his head and a mask on his face that was giving away the fact that it was, indeed, Ryder.This, in turn, got his crazy wife and her friends to open up a new campaign against me, and well, let’s just say that had it not been for my new job and the contract I’d signed, I’d probably have been tempted to go back into hiding.
The funny thing is, I liked this new city; I felt freer than I have in years, and though there were cameras everywhere, most of them were my fans which I’d take over the vultures any day.I was having fun and, as Sydney so succinctly phrased it, flourishing.
After the news broke about Ryder blending in with my fans to get close to me, she’d gone on the warpath, which for her means she’s been furiously writing songs.Sydney likes to have mortal combat through melody; it’s her thing.And no matter how I begged her to leave that whole thing alone, she’d had enough, according to her, and she wasn’t putting up with any more of their shit; her words.
Having friends like her and a few others in the industry who were constantly checking up on me is one of the things that has helped me stay settled this time around, and staying the heck off the Internet.
Someone in my profession should relish the amount of free press I’ve received over the years, but I’m not built that way.Being the topic of discussion on everyone’s tongue makes me sick to my stomach.
Whoever said any press is good press has never been on the receiving end of this kind of attack, or they’re just not human.It was all I could do to hold onto my sanity, especially when all the speculation had the paparazzi relocating to my safe haven in droves.Thanks a lot, Ryder; jackass.
Chapter 24
*Ryder*
“It was a setup.”I’d barely made it through the door after hours spent running around to get here, and this was Mom’s greeting.
“What’re you talking about, Mom?What was a setup?”
“This whole thing, everything.It was all a setup.”Being here in front of her, I saw that the panic in her voice was nothing compared to the fear in her eyes.
My mom has this habit of pacing back and forth, waving her arms around frantically when she’s stressed.She was doing that now only at warped speed.For a minute, I almost thought she was on something, but this wasn’t that look.I know what mom looks like high, and this wasn’t it.
She kept rambling about lies and conspiracies and blaming herself for believing the wrong people, and I still didn’t know what she was talking about.I was too tired and, frankly, freaked out myself to have the patience she obviously needed.
“You’re not making any sense, Mom.Now stop pacing and tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Your marriage, your wife, her family, the whole thing, they set you up, they lied to everyone.”I took a minute to process what she was saying, but her words seemed to be going in one ear and out the other.
I still wasn’t sure what she was trying to say.I suspected that there was something shady going on, but that’s as far as I got in my thinking because I had no proof other than the sketchy thoughts I’d get here and there during detox.
“Mom, I know you don’t like Janie, that you two had some sort of falling out while I was high off my ass, but that’s no reason to accuse her and her family of whatever it is that you’re implying, especially when there’s no proof to back it up.”
“Listen to me.”Mom grabbed me by the shoulders and looked up at me from her much shorter height.“She never loved you; this whole thing is just crazy, and it’s freaking me out.These people are not human.”
Uh-uh, if this isn’t drugs, then what the hell has gotten into her?No, that’s not fair.Before she got hooked on drugs, she was a bit erratic in nature, but I’d somehow blocked those years out after everything that came after, so this was the first time I saw a reminder of the way she used to be.
Mom gets frazzled easily, always did.The world may see her as the well-to-do mother of a pop star, but before she became that, she was just another teenage mom who’d gone off the rails for a few years before my fame threw her into the spotlight.
No one ever thinks about the fact that there’s no training for anyone in her position, neither do they think about the fact that someone who’s not fond of making the best decisions in life is now given the keys to the city, so to speak.I’m not sure what makes them think that she’d become a neurosurgeon all of a sudden just because her son is Ryder Sumner.
I say all of that to say that most things that come out of mom’s mouth should be taken with a grain of salt.“Do you have proof of what you’re saying?And what exactly is it that you’re saying?Who set me up with what?”She took my hand and dragged me over to the table where she had a mountain of papers and folders laid out.
“Look, someone sent me these.At first, I thought it was a hoax.That’s why I didn’t say anything to you right away.But I had it checked out.Elena never cheated on you on that trip, and none of the other things that they said were true.”It took a second for the weight of her words to sink into my gut, and then I fell back against the counter in shock.
My body felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of me, and I just stared at her in disbelief.Those few words spoken in her anger rocked my whole existence and made a mockery of the last five years of my life.I wanted to doubt her; I needed to for my own sanity.
“What the hell are you saying, Mom?”My voice shook with nerves and thinly restrained anger.I wanted her to grin, to crack a smile, and tell me she was kidding.Then I could tell her what a poor joke it was, call her out on her shit, and move on to what she really called me here for.
But even as I thought it, as my mind tried to find any reason for her to tell me this messed up shit, I knew that she believed what she was saying.She’d learned a long time ago not to lie to me, and I knew very well that she wouldn’t play around like that when it came to Elena.‘Tell me!”