Page 88 of My Bully's Crush: Vol1

I told her what I knew, trying not to leave anything out and hating myself with each word.This, too, was on me.I’m the one who had put her in this position, the one who had brought the danger into her life that had, in a roundabout way, caused her friend to betray her.

When the first tear fell on my arm, I could’ve killed someone.No matter what we’d been through or how long we’d been apart, the one thing I could never endure was her tears.

Each time I read about her breaking down on stage or being photographed with red puffy eyes, it was as if someone was poking me in the chest with a hot poker, and that’s when I was still getting high.Seeing her like this with nothing to buffer the emotions I felt was torture for me, and I could only imagine what she was feeling.

Rachel wasn’t just a friend.She was someone she’d trusted enough to let move in with her.Someone she’s been taking care of in many ways for years.So that makes two people who’d betrayed her in the worst way possible, and the rub is that she doesn’t deserve it.She didn’t deserve it from me, nor from her friend.

I knew this news would devastate her and had tried coming up with a million other ways to break it to her, but there was no way to soften the blow.“Let me see what you’ve found.”Her voice sounded the way I remembered it from our youth.That sweet, gentle soul that had swept me off my feet was still alive in there, and it was her I was afraid of harming.

The new brave Elena was something I was going to have to get used to, but the soft-spoken angel I fell in love with all those years ago wasn’t very good at handling betrayal.As someone who’d betrayed her in the worst way, I now found myself in the precarious position of wanting to protect her from even more treachery.

“Okay, I’ll show you.I downloaded everything to the files on my phone.Come here.”I sat up with my back against the headboard and pulled her around between my thighs so that her back rested against my chest as I reached over and grabbed my phone from the nightstand.

I took a deep breath before pulling up the files I’d compiled and allowed her to read without interference.Her body had gone stiff, and I was afraid that she would break at any moment, but miraculously, she held it together.

Even when we played the recorded messages between Rachel and the organization run by the church that was behind this whole thing, she didn’t give me any indication of what she was feeling.

“What do you want to do?I’m here; nothing is ever going to hurt you again; I won’t let it.”

“She messed with my medication?”

“Yes, it was all so that they could control you, the same way I was being controlled.”

“Is all of this true?”I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the top of her head.There was so much hurt and misery in her voice that I almost wished that I hadn’t told her any of this.That I hadn’t thrown her life back into turmoil just hours after making up.

Why am I always hurting her?No matter how I try, I can’t seem to escape that fate.But I had made a promise to myself that this time around, I would be honest with her, that I wouldn’t hold anything back.It was the only way

“I’m sorry, yes.I made doubly sure before I brought it to you.”

“I feel so stupid.I’ve trusted her all these years.Why did she do this to me?”

“I don’t think it was personal; they used something against her.It’s just what they do.These people are monsters.They have no human emotion whatsoever.They do it for money.”She shook her head and gazed off across the room.

“No, there’s got to be something bigger than that at play here.Do they do this with everyone?”

“I’m afraid so.It’s like some sort of cult.”

“What do you mean?”

“In a nutshell, it’s the price we pay for stardom.They want to own us in every way possible.Those of us who don’t toe the line will be dealt with in ways you can’t even imagine.”

“What about my diagnosis, was my doctor in on it as well?”She looked back at the screen and started scrolling furiously.

“Yes, most of the people we know are part of their sick organization.”

“But he said it was genetic.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder why no one else in your family suffers the same thing?”

“Anyway, I looked it up.It’s not only genetics but the environment as well as chemical restructuring of the brain.”

“What does that mean?”I was afraid she would ask that, and this part, believe it or not, was the worst.

“It means they fed you something that brought on your psychosis and manic episodes to make you think you were crazy.And then they attacked you in the press, knowing that you’d have a relapse.All the while, she was feeding you this thing to keep you off balance.”

“This sounds so farfetched.I always wondered how it could happen that way, just out of the blue, but I never imagined it could be something like this.I just thought the stress from the breakup had brought it on, and I was led to believe that it could’ve played a part, but this….”

“What about the cancer?”

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