Page 160 of His Big Bad Stick

In other words, I slept like crap and I’m not in the mood to be told what to do.

Sorry, Jess…

“This is a good smoothie,” Jess says. “You know, I kind of want to have a smoothie place too. But then I think why would I do that to the place a few blocks away, right? That’s not fair to them. I’m probably a terrible businessperson.”

“Fuck them,” I blurt out. “Bury them. Put them out of business. Who cares?”

“Wow. You’re…”

I curl my lip at Jess. “What? What am I, Jess? Say it. Tell me what I am.”

“You’re a bitch right now,” she says. “And if you need anything, let me know.”

She doesn’t back down, which I think I appreciate.

She leaves the gallery and I stand there alone.

My eyes gravitate toward the smoothie. I reach for it and disregard the ugly green color and I take a sip. The rush of sweet pineapple activates every tastebud in my mouth.

The smoothie is freaking delicious.

Finally - something good happening today!

I’m being dramatic but that’s okay, I’m allowed to be dramatic right now. About anything and everything.

My gallery is really close to being ready to open.

There’s really no point in me being here right now. Anything that needs to be done I can’t actually do. Unless I want to be really stubborn and climb up on a ladder.

I touch my stomach and shake my head.

Believe me, I want nothing more right now than to annoy the hell out of Colver. But I won’t do anything crazy to hurt myself or the baby.

I leave the gallery, smoothie in hand.

I guess I’ll take advantage of Colver’s apartment while I can.

Oh, fuck, that makes me feel like my mother.

I’ve worked on my site and social media all afternoon.

Pictures, stories, forms, mailing list stuff… it’s an endless list.

A sense of annoyance surges through me the entire time though. I’m very uneasy. And by uneasy I mean very uncomfortable. My head, my body, everything.

As much as I try not to think about anything I’m thinking about everything.

I think about what happened with Simon. How dumb I was to trust him. I let him control so much and he took everything from me…

What did you do then, Abrielle?

I ran to Colver.

And what did he do, Abrielle?

Colver bailed me out. Fucked me. Bought all my artwork from Simon.

And now…

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