A note from Madi:

I'm having a fucking blast with your girls on Facebook. Keep on keepin' on.

Okay then.

No Good Chic

I know I'm no good.

I spend my days at Reny's piano lessons, or Lexie's soccer practice, or taking Walker to Mommy-and-Me classes, but all I can think of it getting home to check my email and see if today is the day that Edward finally replied. If he's finally wiling to meet me.

Today, he is.

Jake knows nothing. He's been too busy. It's been a handful of months since the concert, and Jacob is freaking oblivious to his own wife's misery. It speaks volumes to our life together. He's so self-consumed. I know the feeling.

We met when he was ten; I was seven. I was the new kid in town, just moving in with Renee and Phil and away from Washington and Dad. It was a difficult transition, but Jake made it better. He was actually nice to me. He was a little older, and he didn't let the asshole kids bully me at school. I kind of loved him. He was my first crush.

Then his mom got cancer when we were teenagers. I tried to be there for him, to support him and help him deal with it, but I wasn't enough. He needed the physical parts of me more than the emotional, so he taught me how to give him a proper hand-job. When that wasn't enough, he taught me how to suck him off. He never reciprocated. And when those things weren't enough, he'd push my chest into the mattress, lube up my ass, and take me that way. I hated it, but I loved him enough to let him take out his pain on me.

Four years it went on like that.

Until the night I graduated. He was tired of the same old stuff.

I told Edward I was a virgin when we met two weeks later. It was a lie I wished was true, because the difference between the way Edward took my body and the way Jake took my virginity were worlds apart.

God, the night Edward and I had sex was majestic. He brought me through crashing waves and shooting stars and splitting atoms. I learned what it meant to be with a man who really cared; everything opposite of Jake.

The night with Jake was awful. He made me take shot after shot, until I was just drunk enough to be there with him in my body but not quite enough to stop him.

I never knew how to classify it. I never consented, but didn't technically … not consent. All I know is that I woke up with blood on my thighs and Jake pulling his jeans back on, and I wanted nothing more than to get the fuck out.

Fuck our plans for NYU. Fuck that we were supposed to be in love. Fuck him, because he fucked me that way.

Going back to him told my epic history of cheating myself. I felt indebted to him because some unseen force that brought a silly little girl and cute little boy together at a young age. Edward loosened my chains, but I was never really free—just testing the length of my rope.

I stayed with Jake because I had nothing else. Charlie would've been pissed if I came knocking on his door with a belly full of a musician's baby. Renee all but told me to marry Jake or get the fuck out. NYU happened for a whole semester before I was too pregnant and married to continue.

I had nothing else. No degree, no money of my own. Nothing. And a kid to take care of. And now, ten years later, I have nearly everything I can think of, but all I want is the chance to fix what I couldn't then.

Jake has announced his intention to run for Senate to represent New York. He's going to win. His money makes him a shoe-in. This is how politics works.

So, before our family becomes headline news and Jake is shaking hands with veterans and recovering soldiers like Edward, we all better get on the same page. If Edward doesn't want to be involved, fine. But I'm not a baby with a baby anymore. I did enough; it's time for damage-control.

I hope Edward lets me in to do this, because shit is about to get crazy.

xxxxxxxxxx

A/N:

Gosh, how many updates is this today?

I'm enjoying this so fucking much. What a blast. Each update feels like an episode of a TV show.

Thank you all for the love. Find me on FB! Madi Merek.