Page 60 of My Bully's Crush: Vol1

We headed to their rooms, which were two rooms connected by a door, and closed the door behind us, and for the first time, I grew nervous.I listened to what they had to say with new hope burning in my chest at the end of it.“Let’s see how good your acting skills have become.”Tyler clapped me on the back.It was the first real sign of comradery either man had ever shared, and somehow it felt as if I’d just been accepted into some elite club, members only.

***

*Janie*

“Which octogenarian who has lost face for pimping out her own blood is now trying to fool the public into believing that she’s a doting grandma?If the world only knew, they wouldn’t let this soulless viper anywhere near children.Anyone who’s a friend of Alice shouldn’t be allowed near an innocent.This April twenty-fifth, we’ll be watching and waiting for you at the end of the rabbit hole.

“How do they know?Who has been talking to these people?You still think this is some little girl, you fool?”

“I don’t even understand what any of this means.”I looked at Mary’s phone screen, where the latest post from the night before was breaking the internet.

“That’s because you’ve only ever been interested in your own means.”

“You never gave a damn about anyone else.But if you think I’m going to burn along with my girls while you go off into the sunset, then you’re more of an imbecile than I thought.Remember, if I go down for this, so will your parents.None of you will be safe.”

“What do my parents have to do with this?What’s this friend of Alice and down the rabbit hole nonsense?”

“You keep pretending.I guess you’re practicing for what to say in front of the cameras.But don’t forget I have evidence.If I go down, we all go down.So, you’d better think of something to head this off fast, or we’re all going to end up in a very bad way.”

I didn’t flinch, didn’t do anything to let her know the fear that was coursing through me.Another minute and my knees are going to give out.How had everything come to this?How had I not seen that this could be the end result of everything that we had done?

Years; this plan had been in the works for years, and all the adults had made sure that it was foolproof.When it all started, I was too young to do much.All I had was my love for Ryder, something I knew even then was real.

When Dad offered to help, with the promise that he’d make sure I got the boy I wanted when it was time to marry, it was like all my dreams came true.What little girl grows up knowing that her every wish is going to be met as soon as she is old enough?

It had been hell waiting for the day, especially when Ryder went on with his life, not even knowing that I existed.Watching him with all the women who came and went in his life had been like dying a little bit each time.But none of them had scared me more than Elena.Even as a young teen, the love they had for each other was plain to see.

To combat the agony, I felt I pretended to admire their relationship.Since I couldn’t tell my peers at the private school I attended how I truly felt, since everyone was rooting for them and their relationship, I’d gone the extra mile, pretending to be a super fan.

No one knew how I died inside each time their names were mentioned together or how many times I’d destroyed my room whenever they were on the front of some magazine.But that was before Mom told me that this was perfect, the perfect way for one of her spells to work.

Since then, I have never questioned anything I was told to do to win Ryder on my own.If I was told to dress like Elena, I did; if I was ordered to mirror her in any way at all, I did it, and the proof that it worked was my wedding day.

Though things still carried on after that day, with the matching tattoos that everyone noticed after a while, I didn’t mind.Mom said I had to let those things be seen and noticed by the public because it would only strengthen the spell.I was literally stealing Elena’s life force right in front of the world, and no one could stop me.

I think Mom and the aunts came up with that idea after it was ascertained that Ryder still wasn’t over her, so, instead of just taking him for my own, the plan had changed, and now I had to erase her completely, which I didn’t mind in the least.

I hated that she still had a hold on him, that he still lusted for and pined after her.So, when the idea of destroying her life was mentioned, I was all in.I thought after she became ill that our plans were working, and I’d be rid of her.But everything seems to have gone to hell, and I have gained none of the things I dreamt of.

Sure, the world knows me as Ryder’s wife, but no one ever really respected our marriage.I have yet to live one day without her name being mentioned with his, and now the little bitch has been stirring up trouble each time I blink.I have my own shit to deal with, so I don’t see why Mary would think that I have time to deal with hers.

Now she’s here threatening me as if I don’t have enough on my plate to deal with.Her words, though, were not to be taken lightly.I can’t have Ryder if I’m behind bars, and some of the things I’d done in the past to get my way just might land me in jail if they ever got out.I felt sickening fear begin in my tummy and spread to the rest of my body.

“I only agreed to do that stuff because you promised me that no one would ever find out.It was all your idea….”

“Good luck telling that to a judge.I suggest you stop acting as if you’re detached from this and start doing your part to get us out of this mess.If you’d done what you were supposed to, none of this would be happening.I should never have given him to you; years of planning are going down the drain because you were too stupid to keep your husband satisfied.Nicole would never have allowed this to happen.”

I hated her smug reminder that her filthy daughter had once shared my husband’s bed and hated even more that I’d had to swallow my own feelings at the time to get what I was after.Back then, my thinking was that as long as it wasn’t Elena he was in bed with, it was fine.Because I knew he didn’t love any of the women we drugged him into sleeping with, that she was the only one he truly loved and wanted.

Each time I helped them trick him into bed with one starlet or the other, I felt that I was that much closer to breaking the bond between them, but that was never the case.Instead, I got to witness firsthand the guilt he would feel when faced with what he had done while under the influence, and it fueled my need to hurt and humiliate her.

The more evident his genuine love for her was, the more I wanted to destroy her, and that feeling never went away.That’s why I had so much fun with Nicole, Noel, and a few of our friends, tearing her down, knowing what the stress was doing to her mental health, not to mention the flare-ups it would cause, which would lead her to take more pills, which only destroyed her body more.

It was a win-win situation, and if she died, so much the better.But now it was all falling apart.Ryder was no longer listening to me, he wasn’t even pretending to care any longer, and if that wasn’t bad enough, this MengeLiNi person was hell-bent on destroying everything we’d worked so hard for.

It’s been weeks since she started this campaign against me.I know it was a concentrated effort because she didn’t appear anywhere else online.It was as if she’d just appeared out of thin air one day, and I was her only target.Well, that’s not exactly true; she was going after Mary, Scott, Matt, and my parents, anyone who’d had a hand in getting Ryder and me together.

But why?I still don’t understand it.I thought I knew in the beginning when she first started.I was sure she was doing all this just to get Ryder and Elena back together, but then she’d scolded Elena’s fans for wanting them to get back together, and I was once again at a loss as to what her true motive was.