Diggy took a moment to produce a cheap plastic lighter. It took him three times to get the flame to appear. The end of the cigarette burned red when he took a deep drag in.
“I wouldn’t either. I’d beat her ass if she did that shit to me.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “You look like her.”
That wasn’t true, but I nodded as though agreeing. Monica Quinn was what the press called camera-worthy. Five foot ten with long dark hair, alabaster skin, and giant boobs that hadn’t required a scalpel, my mother was front page news on plenty of tabloids, not to mention primetime entertainment news. I’d gotten her height and her dark hair, but that was where our similarities ended. Everything about me was average. My boobs weren’t big, but they weren’t small. My hips weren’t curvy, but they weren’t narrow. My butt wasn’t rounded, but it wasn’t flat. My complexion was more on the tan side, something I assumed I’d gotten from my father, whoever he was. Where Monica Quinn was long and lithe, I was tall and plain.
“Does she really fuck all those guys?” Diggy asked.
“Yes,” I said because it was true.
The paparazzi loved Monica Quinn because she was always giving them a story, stringing them along on one of her sexcapades, of which she had many. During interviews, she said she was blessed with a body for sin and saw no reason not to let others enjoy it. She said she adored sex scenes in a movie and insisted on going Method. I hadn’t realized what that meant until recently when I learned she’d had affairs with most of her co-stars—regardless of their marital status.
Needless to say, her adoring fans were not usually the people she worked with.
11 days, 4 hours, 35 minutes remaining
“I’ve been reading up on you, princess,” Diggy said, initiating conversation as he had been doing every day since I’d been there.
I waited patiently for him to toss me the bread and water, but it didn’t come.
“You’re smart, huh?”
“Yes,” I admitted, willing to say whatever was necessary to get food.
As it was, my stomach felt like a giant black hole. The only thing I’d had for the past two days was two pieces of bread and two bottles of water. I wasn’t sure if he was rationing it or merely fucking with me. With Diggy, I couldn’t tell. I was trying to get a read on him to decide whether he might listen to reason and let me go if I could offer him something of value, but so far, the only thing I’d learned was that he was nosy as hell, enjoyed reading trashy gossip magazines, and smelled like he hadn’t showered in a decade.
“How come you’re not hot like your mom?” he asked as though it truly was a disappointment.
I was long past being offended that people didn’t think I was as beautiful as my mother. I’d seen pictures of her at seventeen, and Monica Quinn had been a beauty even then.
“There’s lots of pictures of you,” he mused, flipping the page of a magazine. “You should wear makeup.”
I didn’t contribute to the conversation. I didn’t figure it was necessary. Plus, I had no desire to take fashion advice from an idiot.
“You’re always by yourself.” Diggy looked up. “You ain’t got no friends?”
Because he was expecting an answer, I shook my head.
“I can tell.” He glanced down at the magazine. “Too bad. They might be looking for you if you had any.”
Yeah, thatwastoo bad. But the truth was, I didn’t really have friends. The people I hung around with were more like acquaintances. The reason being none of their parents trusted my mother.
I couldn’t blame them. My best friend from middle school had learned the hard way what it meant to be close to me. My mother had seduced her mother—Monica didn’t discriminate against gender when it came to playing her games. That brief affair resulted in a divorce and, ultimately, the loss of my best friend.
My social status dwindled even more when Monica seduced the principal at the beginning of this year. He left his wife for her only to learn Monica was over him. To top it off, he got fired when my mother accused him of making inappropriate advances on her daughter.
It never happened, but you wouldn’t know it to hear Monica tell the lie. She was good at making shit up.
“I’ll be your friend, princess. All you gotta do is drop that blanket and show me your rack.”
Not happening, Diggy. Not in this lifetime.
9 days, 17 hours, 3 minutes remaining
“Come on, princess. Just show me your tits, and I’ll let you take a shower.”
I would rather sit in my own stench, thank you very much.
And that was what I did.
