Page 65 of Counting On You

Chapter Sixteen

Vicky

AN OPEN LETTERTO JANE AUSTEN

September12th

Dear Jane,

Bruce acceptedmy fake friend request within hours. I should be happy, but I’m not. I’m both angry and hurt. Within a few minutes he sent two messages to the fake profile while ignoring the ones I had sent.

My heart is hurting as I think of him, and a part of me can’t help but wonder if he’s into her—the model. She’s hot, but notthathot. On a second thought, she looks like a gnarly, anorexic stick. Is that what he wants?

Obviously, I can’t reply to him and call him out on it. The only purpose of creating a fake account was to spy on him, find out what he’s been doing. Not for him to ask me—the person behind the fake profile—out.

I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if I should be angry and offended, or hurt and just put up with it. In retrospect, I should never have chosen a Victoria’s Secret model, but then he’d probably not have accepted an ugly person’s friend request, would he?

The messages were mostly harmless, except for the fact that he calls her beautiful and sexy. He wants to meet her and has invited her to a horse racing thing his family is always attending.

He’s never invited me to join them.

I don’t have to tell you how much that breaks my heart.

But surprisingly, somehow there’s also strength and a little hope that maybe he suspects that I’m behind the fake account.

Even though a part of me wants to know more, if only to see how far he’d go, I’m going to delete the fake account. Not today, but as soon as rehab’s over.

I’ve also decided to swallow my pain and not confront him.

I’m sure Lizzy Bennet’s heart was broken countless times before Mr. Darcy proposed. I might not be a Victoria’s Secret model, but surely inner values count just as much, and I have plenty of those.

Yours affectionately,

Vicky Sullivan

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