Chapters (38)
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- epilogue
“You are truly stupid, Violet. Of course I did everything I could in the OR. This was post-op. If the nurses had been watching him closely, the outcome might’ve been different.” Tolly crossed to the pantry to retrieve the bourbon he kept behind a flour canister.
“Where were you?”
“What the hell do you mean, where was I? Was I supposed to sit with him and his wife?”
“No, Tolly, of course not,” Violet searched the refrigerator for the sirloin steak. “I just wondered...” She didn’t hear him approaching. Something slammed into her side, and she toppled to the floor. She looked up at Tolly, the potato gripped in his hand. He pulled her up and said, “You should know better than to accuse me.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, Tolly, nothing at all. I didn’t mean to imply...to make you mad...please, Tolly, calm down.”
He answered by beating her in all the perfect, well-hidden, non-fatal places on her body with the potato, then throwing it at her head as he left the room. “I’m not hungry anymore,” he said.
seventeen
RONNI
I was packing my clothes and watching Rick on the dock with Kitty and Darby, the neighbor’s black Lab. The dogs leaped into the water after pieces of kibble Rick threw. Darby looked like a sleek seal flying through the air, while Kitty O’Shea thumped into the lake on her little sagging bulldog belly every time, swimming frantically to the dock for Rick’s assistance upward.
I took a deep breath and smiled, looking around my writing sanctuary. The past two weeks had been the best of my life. I would put finishing touches on my manuscript back at the apartment, but the hard work was mostly done. I’d meet my deadline, even if the book were never published. I’ve done my best, Violet. I can’t help it if the current market demands nothing but teen vampires, werewolves, wizards, and hormonal adolescent post-apocalyptic warriors. I’d told Rick last night, “I think I’ll title it Fifty Shades of Twilight: Harry Potter’s Hunger Games. Then I might have a fighting chance.”
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about coming to the end of my writing journey and turning over countless hours of work to a stranger. I tried to remember what I’d done to fill my free time before Violet had settled into every waking moment.
I think I was mostly eating and hoping for a boyfriend. Now I had him and food didn’t mean much more than fuel to me.
And one more thing: I finally believed Violet. I was pretty. Maybe it was because I smiled at the girl in the mirror. I really liked her.