Page 10 of Twisted Love

“I see.” Rosa paused, spoke to someone on her end of the line, then spoke again. “What do you need me to do?”

“I did a little snooping back before I graduated high school and found out what happened to most of the prizes. A drawer in mom’s bedroom revealed everything in bills of sale, printouts of transfers, and a savings account in my name that she kept hidden from me.” Keily paused, memories of that drawer were a little overwhelming. While the truth had rocked Keily’s brain, the little bag of crystal meth and the pipe her mom used to smoke it with nearly broke her heart.

That bag had explained a lot to Keily, and it wasn’t just the fact that her mother had gone from beauty queen material herself to a woman who looked twenty years older than she was. The drug ruined her mother’s skin and teeth, but the worst part was how it had made her personality and thinking change. The clear shards of the meth had become so important to her mother that she stole from her own daughter and that hurt Keily the most. The truth had changed who she was that early spring night and for a long time, Keily was a hard, cold person. A person she hadn’t liked, at all. A person that Keily didn’t exactly want to discuss even with Rosa.

“That’s awful, Keily. What kind of mother does that?” Rosa gasped and whispered with shock.

“Mine.” Keily said morosely.

The horrible things her mother had done were a major factor in why Keily had made a change in her behavior, in her thinking. Yeah, she was still looking out for herself, but she wasn’t that girl who’d turned away when others had needed her most, well, not since she’d started working for Logan. Which was why she was hoping her mother hadn’t been able to do anything with the scholarship money. The cash prizes were all gone, the balance on the savings account had told her that, but what about everything else?

“I was thinking. I have to wait for an answer, but I’ve looked at a few of the ‘for-profit’ schools, and the research I’ve done on them showed that some are good schools, but most are scams. I’ve moved my search to in-state universities and found that the state university offers several online programs and mixed-mediums classes. Those are the ones that sometimes offer online and sometimes in-person classes. I’ve looked through them and found a few programs I liked.”

She’d gone through their enrollment checklists and knew she’d have to call her old high school to find out about getting copies of her SAT scores and everything else. It wouldn’t be hard to do and she’d added the call to a to-do list she’d started. Also on the list was a box for checking her emails more often and calling if she hadn’t heard back from any of the places before the weekend.

“Okay?” Rosa drew the word out, clearly not sure where Keily was going with this.

“Sorry, I’m being vague. I need help deciding on what to major in.”

“Oh, that. Well, what do you like to do?”

“I really liked working with Logan. And not just because I wanted him as more than a boss.” Keily laughed. “I liked the job.”

“Then focus on that. Or whatever you like. I’d suggest doing an aptitude test, or something like that. Those are helpful I hear.”

“That’s a good idea.” Keily nodded, even though Rosa couldn’t see her. “I’ll let you get back to work and do that.”

“Thanks, honey. I have a meeting I need to get to, so I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Sure, have a good afternoon.”

Keily hung up the phone and looked up the test Rosa suggested. There were hundreds, but Keily decided on a free one. She was frustrated when she got to the end and had to insert her email address to get the results but did it anyway. She was curious.

The results arrived quickly, and she was surprised at the answers. There were suggestions that she’d never considered, but she did see administrative assistant down near the bottom of the list. She had a few options to think about then. With all of that done, Keily headed into the kitchen to start Logan’s dinner. The hell she’d paid a pretty penny to put herself through earlier made her more than a little uncomfortable, so she decided to get something delivered instead. Everything in the fridge and freezer would require her to move around a lot and stand up longer than she felt comfortable with at the moment, so the delivery option was the one she took.

Logan wouldn’t mind, she knew. He didn’t mind it when she had food delivered because she always chose the best places to order from. Life wasn’t so bad when he was so easily pleased most of the time.

Logan was good like that, and even if he didn’t want to define their relationship, even if she knew this might not last forever, she enjoyed the time she did get to spend with him. Lately, her emotions had been on a rollercoaster and she vacillated between wanting to make sure she wrung every last drop of enjoyment she could out of her time with him and making sure she walked away with as much as she could.

That was the old Keily rearing her ugly head though, the greedy cow in her. She’d had quite a lot stolen from her at a young age and that had really made an impact on her ever since. People would screw you over, even your own mother, so it was best to screw them first. But that was an ugly way to be and she didn’t want to be that way anymore, not really.

Logan had kind of made it clear that was what she should do though. Every time he called her his ‘date’ or didn’t define who she was at all, it hurt a little and the old Keily would come back into play. The need to put that Keily to bed was another reason she wanted to go back to school. She’d had plans when she went off with Joe to help him get through his university days. He’d taken those plans from her. Another hurt on the list of hurts she’d collected over the years.

Being a victim wasn’t a part of her plans anymore, however. She still hated what her mother and Joe had done to her, what she’d allowed Joe to do to her, but she knew she had to pick herself up, brush off the dirt they’d thrown at her, and get on with her life. Nobody was going to come and save her.

Except Logan, a little tiny voice in her brain tried to whisper. She squashed it. Logan wanted to fuck her, and he would until he grew bored with her. Then he’d throw her away too. The minute she stopped being what he wanted her to be or someone more interesting came along, he’d dump her on her ass.

Getting an education, a degree, would be a good idea. She would be able to stand on her own two feet and, yeah, it might just be a piece of paper, but the work, the study, the research, and the knowledge she’d gain wouldn’t be useless. It would hopefully open doors for her. She went back to her computer and started doing more research into which degrees were the most profitable. She didn’t necessarily want to go into a medical field, so she scrolled past those and looked at the other listings.

Nothing really interested her or caught her attention. She thought about the things she liked to do and knew singing wasn’t something you could really profit from, not without a huge fanbase. Besides, she hadn’t sung in front of an audience since her high school days.

She’d really liked working for Logan though. Maybe that was the right field to look into since she kept going back to it. There was time to think about it, and she didn’t even know if she had the money to afford the classes yet. There were student loans and grants, but she wanted to avoid anything she might have to pay back later. Going back to school was about making a clean slate, about starting over, and having debt hanging around her neck before she even finished a degree wasn’t the way she wanted to go.

The jewels and other presents Logan gave her would certainly pay for more than a few semesters if she sold them, but he might ask for those back once he was done with her. She didn’t have the money to fight him on it if he did demand the gifts back, so she didn’t enter them into the equation of what her future might be.

Thinking about the future wasn’t so depressing now but still, as she settled on the couch in the living room, Keily realized she’d be even lonelier than she was now. She missed her niece’s baby laugh and giggles, she even missed her sister’s frowns and the spats they’d had about Keily leaving a yogurt carton on the kitchen counter, something she didn’t do anymore.

Violet wouldn’t believe her sister had not only learned to clean up after herself, but to clean the house without a maid to do it for her. She’d told Violet all the things that had happened in her life, through emails and text messages, but there was never any response.