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“Rylan,” I gasp.
The sound jolts her, and she flinches.
“Ignore me.” My bestie’s lips curve in a smile, though it’s the furthest from warm. “I’m okay. Little Miss Alexa won’t be a problem for long.”
“She disappeared a month later,” I whisper to Marcus. I’m back in the glass house, looking at him instead of at Rylan. “She broke up with you and vanished.”
Marcus gives me nothing. His face is made of marble. His hand moved to the cushion next to my head, and he’s bracketing me.
“Anything else?” he asks, sounding icy.
“No, I—”
Yes.
I’m hurled into another memory.
I’m with Rylan in their backyard, working in the garden.
Grinning, she pulls out the weeds. She doesn’t wear gardening gloves, ever. She likes the feel of the ground on her fingers, she says.
We’re fourteen. The age when Mom let me dye one strand of hair pink. At fifteen, I got to dye my whole hair rusty pink.
“Girls, dinner is ready,” Marcus calls out to us from the sliding door.
“Coming.” Rylan straightens in a flash.
I turn in the direction of the house as well.
Rylan’s enthusiasm dies out when she notices the same thing I do. That Marcus isn’t alone.
Sylvia stands next to him. Tall, slim, and stunning. Her long brown locks drape down the front of her crimson silk blouse. Her light brown eyes are friendly as she waves at us.
She’s a psychiatrist like Marcus. A woman he met at a convention he went to a couple of months after Alexa skipped town.
Another woman I’ll never match up to.
I don’t mourn that fact. Don’t get to.
Rylan commands my attention. Her furious energy draws my attention and I twist to my friend. Her smile remains plastered on her face.
Behind her pearly whites, though, she hisses, “That bitch again.”
Anything I’d say wouldn’t help. I faintly remember Rylan hated Alexa, no matter how much I tried to like the woman. I’m not about to argue with Rylan again. Marcus should handle it.
That is, if Ry ever tells her dad she hates his new girlfriend.
She smiles so hard at Sylvia, you’d think she’s going to ask her to be her stepmom any day now.
“She did ask her.” My Marcus presses his lips to mine.
“She’ll get bored just like that other laughing cunt,” I echo Rylan’s words. She kisses my cheek, reassuring me. “She’ll leave. I’m sure she will. Then we’ll go back to being just you, Dad, and me. Our happy little family.”
I like the idea. My jealousy has become uncomfortable. When I orgasm in my bedroom, it’s Marcus’s name I whisper. When he thanks me for clearing the table, then puts his arm around Sylvia, I almost scream. Almost.
“I’m going to count down slowly from five to zero. You’re going to relax while I do and wake up at the end.” The weight of Marcus’s body on me disappears. He’s at my side. Sitting. “Five…”
He does as he promised. The countdown soothes me. His reassurances help my subconsciousness lie at ease.
