Page 120 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Lizzie

A week passedwithout me seeing Max.

A week of unnecessary pain that I knew neither one of us had to go through if I just went to him. I didn’t know why I was having so much trouble with this. I didn’t know my own feelings.

I had come to terms with what he had done. I had justified it to myself, and I realized it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

I didn’t like that he had to do it, but I was okay with it, and I didn’t care what that said about me as a person. I was past caring about that.

Perhaps I was just as morally corrupt as Max. Perhaps there was something wrong with me, because that was two human lives we were talking about, yet I couldn’t refute the fact that the world was a better place without them in it.

The only thing I wished was that Max didn’t have to be the one to do it. I wondered if that changed how he saw himself as a man, because it certainly changed how I saw him, and something about that bothered me immensely.

I took in the computer screen. I was only able to write one sentence today, and it was a crappy sentence.

I let out a sigh and deleted it, shutting off my laptop. Olivia looked up from her book. “Everything okay?”

“Yup. Everything is just dandy,” I snapped.

“Okay. Jeez. Sorry I asked.”

I looked down at my lap. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just going through a bit of a writer’s block, and it’s frustrating me.”

“That’s okay.” She put her book down on the coffee table. We were both hanging out in the living room. Hunter and Emma were gone, one at school and the other at daycare, and Olivia had been taking a lot of time off from work. I knew a lot of it had to do with her worrying about me, but I wished everyone would just leave me alone.

I wished I didn’t feel so sad and frustrated and angry all the time. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or break something.

Mason’s words haunted me day and night.

I wanted to fight for Max. I wanted to prove to him that he was a man worth fighting for, yet every time I thought about going over there to see him, I ended up chickening out, and now here I was, with nothing accomplished.

Olivia looked at something on her phone. “Hey!” she said suddenly, sitting up.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“What? No. Sorry. They just cast Cato. Do you want to see?”

“Really?” I sat up straighter and moved over to her, looking down at the phone. Not exactly the Cato I had imagined, but then again, no actual man could ever really compete with my vision of a fictional character I had made up in my head. But this guy was close. Plus, he was handsome in a classically charming kind of way, so I could see him drawing in a crowd.

“He’s cute,” I said.

“Too cute?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure with a bit of makeup he’ll look like the drug addict we all envision in the play.”

She smiled a little at that. “I can see it. Well, this is exciting. We’re really moving forward with this play. How do you feel?”

“Honestly?”

She nodded.

“Kind of indifferent.”

She frowned. “Seriously?”

I looked down at my laptop. ‘“I don’t know why I can’t muster up more excitement for this,” I said. I found it hard to be excited about anything these days.

“You just need to see this play in its entirety,” Olivia said encouragingly.

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