Hello! I'm back with an actual update. I hope the recap helped for those who needed it :)
...
April
Amelia
The moment Shannon and I lock eyes, the world stops turning and not in the typical heartfelt way. I furrow my eyebrows while she just smiles and waves at me, as if we've been friends this entire time. Sure, it could have been in a friendly way, but I have a hard time believing that considering our history.
I continue to stare at her, completely lost for words, while the elevator doors shut and Christian and begin the ascent to my floor. Both of us are eerily silent until we finally reach my apartment, where Christian explodes.
"I knew I didn't fucking trust Justin!" he exclaims. "He's a fucking rat, and so is his girlfriend!"
I kick my shoes off and place my purse temporarily on the counter in the kitchen while I try to wrap my mind around what just happened.
Justin's girlfriend is Shannon? My Shannon?
What kind of fucked up story plot is this?
"I knew Justin was dating someone but it never crossed my mind it was her..." I say, although I feel like I should have picked up on the signs. There weren't that many but clearly my intuition wasn't activated or working properly.
I numbly pad over to the couch in the living room. Did Justin know of mine and Shannon's history? Is that why he never explicitly told me about his girlfriend. Fuck, he kept mentioning he had one but he never spoke about her and he never mentioned her name. I would have remembered that.
"I actually wanted to talk to you about that," Christian tells me, his voice significantly softer than it was moments ago. I turn my head towards him, a confused expression on my face. He hands me the magazine that he was still holding and hesitantly, I take it from him. "My mom loves those magazines. She reads them all the time and she's the one that told me about it...Remember the article that came out suggesting you and Justin were having an affair? This is a follow up but it mentions Justin's girlfriend and shows pictures. I nearly had a stroke.."
I don't open the magazine but rather I grip it tighter and just look at Christian with an expression that says 'are you shitting me?' because I already know what he is insinuating.
"Let me guess, the pictures are of him and Shannon?" I ask.
Christian nods, a sympathetic expression gracing his face.
"Yeah...I know you had therapy today so I didn't know if it was good timing but I thought you should know. The whole situation just seems off and unfair," he says.
I place the magazine on the couch in between us and turn away from him. I feel somewhat betrayed, even though it's none of my business who Justin is dating. I think I just feel so annoyed because it means that Shannon has somehow weaseled her way back into my life. She made it hell for a little while and I tried very hard to cut her and her toxicity out. I mean, the last time I spoke to her was almost two years ago when she leaked my phone number and relationship to the press...
"Christian," I say, suddenly remembering what he was going to tell me before we saw Shannon. I turn my head to look at him. "You said something earlier. Do you think Shannon is somehow connected to how my information is being leaked?"
Christian raises his eyebrows and purses his lips.
"It crossed my mind," he admits. "I mean she's done it before so why not again? I thought something along those lines as soon as I saw her face in the magazine and needed to share my thoughts with you,"
