This is a rough copy and although I have gone through it once with edits I know it is probably still chalk-full of them.
Chapter
One
Sophie
I’m completely unaware of what I
am doing at this moment in time; it’s almost as if I am having an out of body
experience… I watch the small car veer off of the interstate and down the off
ramp. I see myself sulking as I am pumping gas and then walking inside of the
store to pay and use the restroom. My life is in complete shambles right now. I
am twenty-five, single, massive amounts of student loan debt that is currently
being sent to collections, and I haven’t eve used my degree since getting out
of college, a failed business, and I have been evicted from my apartment,
twice.
Last year at this time if
someone would have told me where I would be now I would have laughed; I had
everything. Like I said I have an unused English degree, but last year that
didn’t matter, again I had everything. I had started my own party planning
business in Boston shortly after I had graduated from college, which was going
well, I was making close to ten thousand dollars a month. I had my boyfriend
who had just purposed to me and we were beginning to plan our wedding. I had a
beautiful downtown apartment that everyone was envious of.
Everything started falling apart
during the summer when my business started slowing down and collapsing around
me, and at the beginning of November I had to move in with my fiancée. I
figured that even with my failing business that at least I had him, so my life
wasn’t completely fucked… at least now at that moment.
Everything crumbled the week
after Thanksgiving. I had just gotten the news that I had to close the doors to
the business the beginning of December, between the wedding and trying to keep
it afloat, and the fact that I didn’t have much anyways, that I had blown my
savings. What I was in my twenties, I didn’t think that I needed a whole lot.
So here I was the day that I locked my doors for the last time and I walked my
small, pathetic self, back to the apartment. I had once loved walking home. My
old apartment building was spectacular, it over looked the entire city, and I
had full floor to ceiling windows, and believe me it was amazing at night,
especially when you were having sex, but that is neither here nor there. So,
where was I , oh yes, I am walking back through the snowy street, we had just
gotten an unexpected snow storm for Thanksgiving and it was all melting away,
it crunched under my shoe. I sighed as I opened the small door that led up to
Joe’s apartment.
Joe and I had met two years ago,
when I was planning his sister’s wedding. He was kind and charming, and
extremely good looking. He was tall with muscles in all the right places, he had
these deep grey eyes that I at one time thought were beautiful but now I think
otherwise, and then the messy hair that sat on top of his head, sometimes I
couldn’t say no to him. He didn’t realize at first how much money that I had,
but once he saw my apartment he had to have. I was twenty-three living in one
of the most sought after and expensive complexes in the city. I was worried at
first that he was only with me because I had such a successful company, but as
time went on I believed that we had this amazing chemistry. We did, we took
romantic cruises, we had an amazing time, and when we got engaged a year later
no one was surprised.
Paige, my best friend and
employee had urged me to get a per-nup before we went through with the wedding,
but I was convinced that Joe wasn’t after the small fortune that I had managed
to accumulate plus I knew that I always managed to blow it all anyways, I was
constantly struggling to pay bills, but he had no idea. I was convinced that he
really loved me for me. I was twenty-four, stupid, impulsive, too creative for
my own good, and now broke.
So, where was I… oh yes, I
walked up the staircase to Joe’s small, crummy apartment, the only thing that
was holding me together on this day was that our wedding was on the fifteenth,
in exactly two and a half weeks. It was the only thing that had put a smile on
my face all day. I picked up my steps a bit not wanting life to defeat me at
that moment. I slide my key into the lock and entered, immediately walking to
the bathroom and starting the tub. I slipped into it only moments later and let
the water engulf my body. I felt myself slowly falling asleep in the tub, but
figured that maybe, just maybe, a soothing nap would help me.
I was awoken some time later to
the front door being slammed shut and then voices coming from the living room.
I got out of the tub and slipped into the clothes that I had lying on the
floor. As I pulled up my yoga pants up over my ass I heard the conversation as
I can only guessed they made their way into the bedroom.
“I told you, baby, it’s not like
that. This had been the plan from the beginning,” I heard Joe say, and I
wondered who he was calling babe, “get her to fall in love with me, marry her,
divorce her, and get a large chunk of change that we can live off of for a
while.” His words crushed me at that moment.
“I know, it’s just how do you
know that she won’t make you sign it,” I heard a female voice say. My whole
body went cold as I sat down on the edge of the tub and listened, I know that
it wasn’t what I should have done, and I listened to any more, but because I
was invading their privacy, but because it was crushing me inside to hear it.
Then I heard him laugh.
“Because, she thinks that I
truly love her,” he wasn’t aware that I had just locked the doors today; when I
had moved in here I had used the excuse that since we were getting married I
wanted to go ahead and start living together, and my apartment wasn’t a family
apartment. I had managed to fall into a depression in the last week and he
didn’t even notice; I understand why now.
“But you don’t?” she asked
coyly, the way the words sounded made me want to be sick.
“Now babe, you know that you are
the only one that I love.” He said and then I heard him kiss her. He had used
me this whole time, trying to get money; that bastard. I let myself sink off of
the side of the tub and onto the cold hard tiled floor; it was the perfect
simile for my life at the moment. I heard her giggled followed by at, “Joe,
stop it.” and it made me sick. I silently cried into my lap for minutes that
lasted longer than I thought they could.
Then the hurt resided, and anger
coursed through me. My eyes popped open, completely clear of tears as I threw
open the door and saw them completely naked all over one another.
YAY!!! I am excited for this! This is just a little snippet when I get to 100 likes on Facebook I will release the remainder of chapter one...
