That earned a few soft gasps.
I fought off the need to smile and doubled down on the pain and anguish of a man who’d had his heart ripped to shreds by the love of his life. “But now I know the truth. Tiffany never planned to leave Adam for me. She told me so after the word got out about us. She laughed at me for thinking she would give up his money for a simple gardener like myself.”
Jessa, who stood in the background, immediately began to shake her head and mouth, “too far.” She was the one who had helped me devise this genius plan. Now, as I carried it out, she was there to ensure I had delivered a believable performance.
I took a deep breath to rein it back in a little before carrying on. “During this exchange, I also learned that I wasn’t the only one. She had cheated on Adam before me, and while with me, she had cheated on us both with other men. So while these last two weeks have been painful and humiliating, they’ve also been very eye-opening.”
“Do you have anything to say to Adam?” one lady called out.
“Anything I have to say to him, I would prefer to say it to his face in private. He’s the true victim in this, and I refuse to make things worse for him.”
Another shouted, “Do you think Tiffany feels bad at all for any of this?”
“That’s something you’d have to ask her, but I’d suggest you take her answer with a grain of salt. After our last exchange, I honestly don’t think Tiffany Lewis is capable of feeling guilty for anything that she does. So if I had to guess, I’d say no. She only seems to care about herself and the people she can benefit from.”
“What are you going to do now? You live next door to her. Do you plan to move?”
I shrugged while coming up with something that wouldn’t be too over the top. “Well, after all the drama that she’s brought to the area, I would hope that she’d be the one to move. But from what I understand, the house is in Adam King’s name, so I guess it all depends on how he handles things.”
They asked a few more minor questions and then left.
“One down, one to go,” Jessa said as we walked back to the house.
Just thinking about it turned my stomach into knots all over again.
“Yup, and it’s the most important one of all.”
21
Tasha
I’d been on the phone with my mom for the last twenty minutes, so when Dave beeped through, I couldn’t have been more thankful. There was only so much one person could endure, and considering everything my sister had put me through my entire life, I think I’d passed that point many moons ago.
“Listen, Mom…as much as I would love to continue listening to how rough Tiff has it right now with everything going on, I really do have to go. Dave is on the other line, and I have to answer it. It could be important.”
“It could be?” She’d spent the entire call telling me how I just don’t understand my sister and should really give her the benefit of the doubt more, yet I tell her that the call beeping through might be important, and she’s somehow offended. Go figure.
I balled my free hand into a tight fist. The strength it took to keep a lid on my feelings left my knuckles white. “It is important, Mom. It’s my roommate; I need to take this call. It’s been great talking to you. I’ll hear from you soon.”
Without giving her an inch of wiggle room, I said my goodbye and hung up. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to switch over fast enough, so I had to call Dave back. At this point, even if he didn’t answer the phone, at least he saved me from enduring much more of my mother’s delusional view of Tiff.
“Hey,” I said after he picked up. “Sorry about that. Apparently, Tiff called my mom, crying to her about how I ruined her life. So I was on the other line getting a lecture about how Tiff is my only sibling, and that I really should put her first. Then she went into that whole blood is thicker than water speech.”
“Your mother seriously called you up to defend your sister? Does she know what really happened?” Dave had been there to witness this type of behavior from my mom before, so I didn’t know why he seemed so surprised by it now.
“She knows Tiff’s version, which—as we both know—is a bit skewed.”
He snapped several times, as if indicating that a thought had just hit him. “Let me guess…she told your mom that you kidnapped her, beat her up, and trapped her in an abandoned warehouse, all so you could take over her life. How close am I?”
“Actually, you’re not that far off. She told her the truth about getting plastic surgery, but she said the healing process was longer than she expected. Of course, she left out the part that it’s taking her longer to heal because her doctor learned how to perform facelifts from YouTube. Anyway, she admits to asking me to fill in for her, but everything else was a total exaggeration. So my mom’s under the impression that I did all of that just to ruin Tiff’s image, her career, and her relationship.”
“Did you at least correct her?”
“What’s the point? She never listens to me anyway. No matter what I say, she always dismisses it because it goes against what the chosen one told her. I mean, I denied it, but that’s as far as it got. It’s not like she gave me much talking time in the conversation to set her straight, so I didn’t even bother.”
“Why would you want to ruin her life?”
“Right?” It was amazing to know that I had someone in my corner that just got me. “I have
