Page 90 of Keep Your Guard Up
4thMay
Mum reached out again, asking to catch up for coffee. Talia said we couldn’t afford to waste money on silly things like coffee catch-ups. I told Mum I was sick.
11th May 2017
I won my fight, barely. I could feel the days, nearly weeks lacking in training with every punch and kick I threw. She congratulated me in front of everyone and made a big fuss, which felt like a really nice change. I was so proud of myself to have made her proud. But when we got in the car, she told me how disappointed she was in me for not getting the ‘fight of the night’ bonus. I drove us to the hospital for my routine post-fight check-up, since she refused to drive. The conversation quickly moved to the ring girls, how old I thought they were, how pretty she thought they were, how much she bet I had been itching to get near them. As per usual, I told her she was wrong, and that answer wasn’t acceptable. She pulled a chunk of myhair out from the base of my skull while I drove us to the hospital.
21st May 2017
I’m tired to the bone. I’ve reached fight-week weight unintentionally and people are starting to ask questions. It doesn’t matter. The lies feel like truth for a moment if I tell it right.
No one will ever love me or accept me if I leave. I can’t afford to leave. Milah needs me to stay, she needs her bills to be paid.
1st June 2017
I met with my lawyer today and had documents changed. As of 1st June 2017, if anything were to ever happen to me, all funds and assets are to be split 50% to Milah Riordan, 25% to Dylan Riordan, and 25% to Jaxon Jones.
I felt such a relief from it, I actually slept after she forced me into sex again.
#
8th January 2018
She found my stash.Found this book, all of the invoices for Milah’s treatment. She was furious, claiming it was money we needed, wanting to know how I could be so selfish to spend it on someone as fucked up as my sister. She doused the documents, the book and everything I own in gasoline and threw it in a fire out the back. She turned and threw a water balloon at me. Turns out that was filled with gasoline also. Luckily, the book was on top of the pile. I grabbed it and ran. She chased me for several blocks with a lighter. How she could run so fast, I have no idea. But I’m not exactly equipped with a super-staminaanymore. After three years of this shit with her, my own body is starting to give up on me. I can feel it.
When I lost her, I waited out for a long while until the early hours of the morning.
9th January 2018
It was around 1.30 am when I snuck into the house I bought with my own money, took the car keys to our brand-new BMW, and left.
I was driving down the highway with absolutely no idea of where the fuck I was going. I needed to leave; I knew that much. I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore, until a kangaroo jumped out onto the middle of the road. I swerved hard and landed on a dirt path. Guessed this was the new road I was driving on.
I’m so glad I did. It was beautiful what I found at the end of it. A lookout over a cliff, bushland for miles, and a quiet, tranquil waterfall.
I sat and stared for hours and hours, wondering what it would feel like to share this place with someone. Someone good.
Chapter 51
Mari
“Where is he?” I asked, pushing past a half-asleep JJ who was still rubbing at his eyes.“Morning to you too, Lynnie,” he replied, stretching his mouth open wide in a yawn.
“Where is he? Is he here?” I headed straight for his door, pausing when I noticed a set of folded pillows and a blanket on the couch.
JJ groggily walked over to the pile and lifted the note stacked neatly on the top. “Curse you guys and your fuckin’ theatrics.” Another yawn from him. “He’s gone out for a while. He’ll be back a little later.”
“Did he say anything else?”
JJ shot me a filthy look, punishment for asking questions at six in the morning.
“Like, where he was going? When he’d be back?”
“Nope.” A third yawn.
“Jesus, what are you so tired for?” I asked, following him as he skidded his slipper-clad feet over the floor as we walked to the kitchen.
“You try living with a spawn of Satan and tell me how good your sleep patterns are.”
