Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Like the fact that neither Mary nor any of her talentless daughters had anything to offer other than their manufactured bodies, things got really heated when they started posting photos of Elena when she was a teen and comparing them to images of the Hudson girls and Janie at the same age, it was brutal.
At one point, they broke the internet; it was a blitzkrieg, plain and simple, from someone who obviously didn’t give a fuck. At some point, Mary and her people must’ve recognized the signs that the more they spoke out, the more information was forthcoming from the enemy, so they backed down for now. I had a sneaking suspicion that that wasn’t going to stop those little girls. I had the feeling that they had only just begun.
The last thing Mary did was to threaten legal action, which is something she always does because she’d stolen enough money over the years to keep anyone in litigation for as long as they lived. MengeLiNi simply answered with another detail about Mary’s unscrupulous nature before she conned the world into thinking that she was mother of the decade. It was at this point that she stopped with the threats and just went radio silent.
In the midst of all this, I still had a song to write, and for some reason, it was much easier to get the words out than it had been for the last couple of days. I finished cleaning it up in an hour and was in a hurry to get back to the studio, but I had to wait for the call from Saunders telling me that it was okay to head back to L.A.
I have to remember to give Reggie a fat bonus because had it not been for his digging catching the attention of Mr. Saunders, this wouldn’t be happening, and I wouldn’t be getting help from a most unexpected place. It was starting to feel like a second chance all around, and my only hope was that I get a second chance from the one who mattered most.
I spent the rest of that day planning for my return and trying my best to find an actor inside of me that was never there before. The thought of being in the same house with these people, having to pretend for two months tops that I didn’t want to slit their throats for what they had done to my life, was hard, but because it was for Elena, I knew that no matter what, I would do it. I was also worried about the other stuff that Saunders hadn’t shared because what he’d shared so far was horrible.
Later that night, I went through my nighttime routine after my shower, where I talked to her in the mirror as if she were here, saying all the things I wished I could say to her in person while hoping that I get the chance soon. I slept better that night than I had in years and woke to more drama.
The ten-year-olds had left the internet in an uproar with a final message to Mary sometime after I had gone to bed. It simply said, “Every battle is won before it is fought. ‘Sun Tzu.’ If you know what this means, put down your weapons and retreat. Leave Elena Gianni alone, give her back what you took from her, or you will suffer the consequences.”
Of course, the whole internet wanted to know what was going on; this was the first time anyone had mentioned Mary’s involvement with any of it. Her daughters were known to be Janie’s friends, sure, and everyone knew that they had a hand in the bullying of Elena, but no one so far had put together the fact that a woman in her seventies had taken part in the teenage high school bullshit, or that it was a concentrated attack against Elena orchestrated by her. I myself had only just started piecing it all together.
But it didn’t take some very enterprising denizens too long to start putting the pieces together, and that’s where the fun began. People were digging up old posts, interviews, and things that happened in the last ten years that I barely remembered or even recognized.
Somehow, the tide had turned, and it was no longer about Elena being shamed. Everyone’s focus had shifted to Mary and her family, which is a big no-no back in L.A. It was mid-afternoon on the third day when I got the call that it was time to go home, and ten minutes later, the news broke that I had a movie deal with the Saunders group. This took the internet in a whole new direction as well.
They’d called Scott, my manager, and fed him the story that we were going with. That I’d left the tour because of a call from Mr. Saunders, who had warned me not to tell anyone where I was going. Supposedly he was a fan and had seen my downward spiral and wanted to help, and that was his reason for getting involved.