She must have if she gave up Pawsome Hearts and me.
That’s why she ran.
She knew she was dealing with a mad dog, and I stupidly invited him to sink his rabid teeth into her flesh.
Jackass idiot.
My fault.
It’s all my damn fault, and this time, I can’t fathom how I’m going to fix it.
Happy memories from Queenie with Gramps and greyhounds can only help my mental health.
They can’t tell me how to win a fight with Satan.
XXIII
Ruff Days
(Lena)
I should’ve known this curse was coming.
I should’veknown.
Yet somehow, I’m standing there with the biggest shock of my life flashing before my eyes, my worst fears materializing like a hallucination.
The night is dark as August’s private jet cuts through the sky back to Seattle, delivering me to my doom.
Even though Elle told me to put my phone away, I refresh X again, watching the social media carnage unfold.
People from all sides come for Brady, knives out and gleaming, laughing or celebrating the comeuppance of another rich guy they resent only because they’ll never have his success.
Every post by Pruitt Brands turns into a dumpster fire.
Tabloids spinning more rumors, more lies, oh God, asking if I’mstillsleeping with a predator who violated me, who tore my soul apart.
A few people are sympathetic, sure. They know it’s revenge porn, but it doesn’t help.
Predictably, eighty percent of the internet is absolutely vile.
Apparently, I deserve this and more for being “a boat hoe.”
Apparently, Brady could’ve done a thousand times better than a “vet slut.”
Apparently, it’s my fault for existing and trusting a man not to be wretched.
The insults fly around my head like shattered glass, finding sharp new places to lodge and cut me deeper.
Whore. Slut. Disgusting bitch.
The list goes on for miles.
The worst part is, they’re the same horrors I imagined after Harry exposed his dirty clips the first time.
It took time and a little therapy to reframe the incident as him taking advantage of me. To see myself as a victim.
Now, as the biting hell from strangers stabs me in the face, I can feel all that therapy work unraveling.
