Curves Couture-Completed

Chapter 11

Chapter11

I couldn't believe I did that.

I stared at her in horror, bracing for her comeback, but all she did was to flick a long, manicured finger down her wet cheek before flicking off the access fluids. "So childish," she said cuttingly before reaching for a tissue to dab at the excess moisture. "One would think I was the older sister," Janice murmured mockingly. With a look calculated to irk, she flicked a brow up at me condescendingly. I gritted my teeth, trying to prevent myself from lurching at her and ripping her hair out. She was just too good at this.

"Look, Janice, there is no point to your being here or for us to be discussing this. The deed is done, signed, and sealed. I doubt Ricky would let you off so easily. He seemed pretty determined to have you—"

"He did?" Janice asked with a calculated look entering her eyes.

"Yes, he did," I said rather impatiently. I really needed to get home. Picking up the comb again, I began to run it through my hair, removing the knots and tangles and soothing the abused strands back into some version of its normal natural waves.

I would need to make a hair appointment and soon. My limp strands needed treatment. I sighed heavily at my reflection. I was even beginning to think like a model. I glanced back at Janice's and watched, in a hypnotic-trance-like state, as her graceful hands moved swiftly and surely about, repairing the damage done to her makeup. In no time at all, she was done.

She stared at me in the mirror, and I at her. Our eyes met, but there was no more animosity in hers. I think her shrewd mind was already ticking away to make the best of her new situation. Knowing Janice, she would rise above. I almost felt sorry for unleashing her on Ricky... or more like, for leashing her to Ricky. But I was more than glad to have her off my hands. And hopefully, out from manipulating my life.

There was no love lost between us. So, in the end, deep down, I really didn't care—not anymore. I huffed out a relieved sigh as that realization struck me. My sigh drew Janice's attention back at me. "I see you are happy to be rid of me. But I took care of you all these years. It was my efforts and my ambition that kept us alive, that fed you, that gave you the drive to become what you are today. It was me. If you're anything at all, it's all because of me. All me that you owe anything and everything to. Just you remember that."

With that last statement, she rose majestically and turned to strut gracefully out. I felt her words hit hard. For it was true. This was her ambition, not mine. I was living her ambition because I had none of my own. Mine had only been to be rid of Janice, and that desire too had stemmed from her.

Just like that, I was deflated.

Erin, my modeling, Ricky—everything had been because of my reactions to Janice. Did I really have nothing of my own?

I stared hard at my profile and thought harder still. I saw the delicate length of my nose and the dainty slant of my brows. These were features I shared with Janice. But I shared many things with Janice—things that I was proud of and things I wasn't. My faith, 'til now, had been interlocked with hers. But I had broken that lock. I had become free. My destiny, hence forward, was my own to make. I did owe Janice a level of gratitude, but she owed me more. What I bore for her and from her could not be so easily measured. It was not easily described even, but I had contributed something to her success. I had given the only thing I had to give—myself. And I had a worth—one that was beyond measure. Least of all, using Janice's mode of measurements.

But that me was now gone. My actions going forward would be of my own making. My decisions, my life-style, everything. Light glimmered at the end of the tunnel. I was clearly approaching daylight. My journey through the darkness was surely at an end.