Page 68 of My Bully's Crush: Vol1

I knew he was clean, though, because I’d met with Heather Saunders, who just called me up out of the blue, and how could I not meet with the empress of Hollywood?I knew from the tabloids that her husband was working with Ryder on a movie, so when she called, I wondered what she wanted with me.I was deathly afraid that she’d ask me to make a movie with him, which would’ve been the worst possible scenario.

The truth is I still don’t know what that day was about.She’d just asked me out to lunch as if we were old friends, and once we met, things got even stranger.We talked and laughed about the shows we’d been in though she hadn’t acted in years.

Then things became personal, and she asked me about myself and how I was doing, very probing questions as if she were checking in for someone.She’d made slight mention of the fact that he was clean, just threw that in there nonchalantly, even mentioning that she knew our history and how sorry she was that things had happened the way they had.

Apologizing to me as if she’d had something to do with it, which I knew she hadn’t.Then she went on to tell me that he was working with her family studio, but that was it.It felt like a character reference or something as if she wanted to hear from me what I thought about him, but she never came right out and asked.

And when we parted, she promised that we would do it again.I’d found the whole thing weird but friendly and had put it out of my mind until now.It can’t hurt to have a friend like Heather Saunders, but I wasn’t expecting much to come of it.I’m good at what I do, but I’m nowhere near the caliber of celebrity that she and her husband rub elbows with.But what was the connection between that and him being here?

“Wait, there’s been a strange car following me around for the last few days.Does Janie have anything to do with that?”I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought about it before, but I wouldn’t put it past her.The way the tides had turned online and in the tabloids, I had no doubt that she was feeling restless.

She’d proven time and again that even though I never said a word to or against her, she saw me as a rival.And now, with everyone clamoring for Ryder and me to get back together and all the secrets this MengeLiNi person kept exposing, I can imagine how out of control she must be feeling; I know I would be very distressed if the whole world was favoring someone else to be with my husband.And if it was now known that I hadn’t won him by fair means.

“A strange car?”He sounded spooked, and that only raised my anxiety.What the hell does he have to be wary of?Those two are one and the same now since they exchanged vows.Whatever she does or has done, I lay at his door.Two peas in a pod.

“What did it look like?”

I explained the vehicle I had seen almost every time I left the house.The only reason I hadn’t become afraid was that they weren’t trying to hide the fact that they were indeed following me, and at the time, I didn’t think of her having anything to do with it.My answer seemed to put him at ease which made no sense, and I gave him a squinty-eyed look.

“Is that your doing?”

“You could say that, but that’s not why I’m here.I really do need to talk to you; it’s very important.”

“And I said I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.Why the hell are you having me follow Ryder?What I do has nothing to do with you.You’re married, remember; she should be your only concern; leave me alone.”

“Stop saying that.You’re my concern, no one else.She is, she was….It was a mistake, okay?I’m here to explain everything, but I’m not going to do it standing out here.Now back up and let me in, or I’ll move you.”

This son of a demented bitch.If I had something close at hand, I would’ve brained his stupid ass with it.I started to look around for something large and heavy, but of course, there was nothing but cloth and a table that was too heavy for me to lift.

“A mistake?”I almost choked on my words.And once again, like a kite in a storm, the words of fury just came spewing out of me, untethered and unscripted.“You call marrying her and leaving me standing at the altar while you did it a mistake?You call everything that you two put me through a mistake?”

“Calm down, Elena; you’ll make yourself sick.”He’s going to die here tonight by my hand.

I hopped from one leg to the next, so completely incensed I didn’t know what the hell to do with myself.I imagined I looked rabid and all but frothing at the mouth.That’s how mad I was.“Don’t you tell me to calm down you…you… fucking moron.Do you have any idea what you put me through?”Breathe, Elena, or you’ll pass out right here in front of him.

I thought about all of the things his wife had done over the past five years.The putdowns, the lies, the hateful barbs.I thought about the way she’d been copying me in everything I did to the point I thought she was a damn Skinwalker, planning to take over my life.

I thought about the pain, desperation, loneliness, and fear I felt when I was at my lowest.My heart ached with all the memories.I could see her smug smile in the days following their wedding.I could see how she’d thrown it in my face that she had won and how that had made me feel.

I remembered how she and he both had made light of what we once shared.How he’d thrown us away to be with her and that even after she’d won, it was still not enough.I recalled how she’d gone out of her way to mimic all our shared times together.Going to the places Ryder and I had been known to frequent and always with some sly remark when asked about why she thought she was the one he’d chosen.The mockery she’d made of my love for him.A love that I held so dear had been turned into nothing.

I thought of the strange woman who’d approached my mother and me out of nowhere to warn us that someone was working something dark against me.Something I had ignored at the time because I was too caught up in heartache, and besides, I didn’t believe in that crap, though I felt there was something more than meets the eye at work there.

It would’ve been so easy to accept that explanation because what else could be responsible for how he’d treated me?But my rational mind told me that such things were not real, nothing more than old wives’ tales.

And then I thought of all the ways she had tried to become me until it was so obvious that even our fans had noticed and made mention of it, giving credence to the old woman’s words.I thought of the betrayal from both of them, and calm was the last thing I felt.

“She turned my life into fucking All About Eve, only you’re no Bill Sampson because you were too stupid or too hopped up on whatever drug of choice you were on that week to know what was going on.I was the one left hurt; I was the one who was gutted for all the world to see, so you can just fuck all the way off to hell and take that hag of a slut along with you.”

I slammed the door even though my heart was shaking and my knees were about to bend.I was dry-heaving so hard I thought I would throw up all over myself.My head spun, and it was all I could do to hold onto my mind before it fractured.This was not good.I needed to calm down before things really did get out of hand.But I was so confused.

I wanted more than anything to open that door and run into his arms like an idiot, but the tears that burned a trail down my cheek were all the evidence I needed to keep going.The heart wants what it wants, but I can’t let it win, not this time and not with him.

I didn’t know that I would feel like this.That seeing him again would rob me of all my senses.Even with the hurt, I still felt I could still want him.He was my person once, mine, and he’d stripped it away without explanation.He’d torn the biggest part of my heart away, and what was left, he still lived in.

Why is life so unfair?Why do I still feel for him?Why am I so tempted to hear what he has to say?Could there be any reason good enough for what he has done?I would say no.So why?Why am I so thrilled beneath the anger that he’s here?

I wanted him to go away, and yet I wanted more than anything for him to stay.Why was he here now?And why was he so affronted by me calling her his wife?Did that mean that they were no longer together?