Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Right after you’re done with me, lady.
She didn’t hear my inner dialogue, which was probably a good thing.
“So, you’re too good to talk to us now that you got your new job as Coke’s desk whore?” my mother continued.
The more she spoke, the more upset I became.
It happened once or maybe twice a year if they were out of jail—I would have to face down my mother and father—but each time it happened, it got easier to hate them.
I never used to be quite this emotional about them—but each time Johnny was near, he showed me how much he cared just by me allowing him to open up.
I didn’t reply to my mother’s words, which pissed my father off. “She’s talking to you.”
“Is she?” I asked carefully. “Imagine that. Someone talking to you, telling you needed to get your anger under control.”
My father stiffened and took a threatening step toward me just about the time the attendant said, “Your chicken is ready.”
I turned, took my chicken, then walked around the back of the store to grab the rest of the items I’d been tasked with acquiring before heading to the front.
Anger rose in me the more that I stood in the same store with them.
My dad, whom I hadn’t seen since he got out of prison.
Apparently, he hadn’t been reformed.
Imagine that.
I heard he had gotten a speeding ticket, but hadn’t heard he was out officially. Normally it was my grandfather that told me when he was released on the numerous times he’s been in jail, but I hadn’t had lunch with him this week yet.
It was scheduled for tonight since last night I’d had that speed dating round in Jefferson.
Then again, the last time my father got out, it warranted a call from him, which made me frown.
He must not know, I decided.
When it was my turn to get checked out, I set it all on the counter and waited for the attendant to ring it up.
She offered me a sneer, and I replied back with a soft smile.
Everyone hated me, and it was all because of the people I could feel now standing at my back.
I hated them.
I hated them with a passion, and I wished that they’d both just disappear. That would make my life infinitely easier.
Nobody had any idea what it was like to be in my shoes. And let me share with you. The outlook was quite bleak until about a month ago.
My life was no picnic.
I’d tried to go to college at the local campus, but unfortunately for me, the dean of admissions also happened to be the woman that my mother stole from on her last offense that had landed her in lock-up for two months. Meaning that I couldn’t go to the local college because I wasn’t allowed admittance since my ‘grades were unfortunately too low.’
I then had to drive an extra forty-eight minutes to the college two counties over, which also meant more gas, and higher tuition because I wasn’t a local.
The only jobs I was able to get were ones in the surrounding towns—hopefully where my last name and face had never been tied to my mother and father—which was a hard thing to accomplish since they were so notorious. Not to mention that the name Common wasn’t common at all.
Unfortunately.
And that hadn’t included my childhood. My teen years? Yeah, I was lucky I wasn’t the type of person that was unstable enough to kill myself. Because if there was anyone who had a good enough reason to do something that drastic, it was me.
Constant bullying. Men thinking that it was okay to touch when no woman should ever have to tell them no. Friends that weren’t friends doing things to me that friends shouldn’t do—like jokingly writing my name on a homecoming queen card, and then voting for me. Yeah, that had been the worst year of my life, and the first time I was ever arrested.
Ashley Patterson, Amanda’s friend who was also my friend, but only by association, had voted for me to be put on the ballot. And then everyone had voted for me to win just so I would have to get up on stage. Once I was up there, they’d thrown eggs at me.
I’d left the prom in the dress that I’d scraped and saved for, spending every single cent that I had on it, covered in eggs. Ruined, with a little less than a half an hour of wearing it.
Then, to add insult to injury, they’d published my picture as the ‘Prom Queen’ in the yearbook with an egg flying at me.
Needless to say, my parents ruined everything.
“Is that it?” the attendant asked, looking behind me at my parents.
“Yes,” I said, even though my mother started to put her things next to me.
The woman hesitated.
“I’ll only be paying for my stuff.”