Page 70 of My Bully's Crush: Vol1

“Anyway, he was in on it.”

“In on what?What the heck are you trying to say, Ryder?”

“He was my handler or one of them, I should say.One of the people they placed next to me to keep me under control.”

“Who are you talking about?What the hell are you saying?I’m confused.”

I wasn’t doing this right.I kind of expected it because there was so much to get through, and I wanted to pick and choose what I shared with her this first time.But now that I was saying this shit out loud, it all sounded so convoluted, plus I’d only just learned most of this stuff myself.

“It was a conspiracy, I guess you can say, with a lot of players.”Now I had her attention, and she let me talk for the next half an hour without interruption as I filled her in on most of what had happened in the last five years, starting with what led up to my marriage but leaving out other things that I didn’t think she was ready for.I’d already shared plenty, and that was enough.I couldn’t forget how fragile she was and what some of what I had to say might do to her psyche.

When I was done, she was sitting on the lounger next to me, not saying a word.“I know it’s a lot to take in all at once.”The look she gave me was cold enough to freeze my balls.I’d forgotten how she could get when riled.Elena has two sides to her when she’s mad, according to the situation.She can either fly off the rails in anger or get so cold you’d think your life was in danger.After all these years, I’m still unsure which is the lesser of those two evils.

***

*Elena*

“Are you telling me that your shyster of a spiritual advisor and the plastic Barbies, along with that slut of a hag you married, put their little brains together and came up with this?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“Unbelievable.”

“So, let me get this straight.Nicole and Noel Hudson pretended to be my friends only to get close to you in order to break us up so you could marry someone else.Is that what you’re saying?”Nothing about this made any sense, but he sounded like he believed it.

“In a nutshell, yes.”

Something about this wasn’t adding up for me.The math wasn’t mathing as they said.I could believe that those two would stoop as low as they had, but there had to be something in it for them.Unless!

“Ok, well, everyone knows the plastic Barbies don’t do anything without their mother’s consent, so what part did she play in all this?”

“I’m not sure we should get into that right now.”He got mighty fidgety as if I were putting him on the spot.Too bad he wanted to talk; now I was ready to listen.

“Why?Is it too complicated for you?Fine, there’s the door.”

“Come on, Elena, don’t be like that.”

“You either tell me the whole story, or you get the fuck out right now.”

“Fine, but keep an open mind ok; this happened a long time ago.”

“Keep talking.”

“There might have been a situation where I was kind of intimate with her, Mary.”“You fucked her.”

“Yes.The thing is, I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time.The age of consent in Cali is sixteen, but the rest of the world might not have been so understanding.”

“You fucked her.What was she, like sixty?”

“Thereabout!I think.

“That’s disgusting, you disgusting pig.”

“Hey, it was in the past, and besides, I was high.It only happened once, and when I realized what I’d done, I stayed as far away from her as possible.”

“Yeah, Ryder, our past, you were with me.”

“No, this was before we were together.I promise.”