Sophie Sparks, $2.99, ISBN 978-1005508159
Contemporary Romance, 2022
Poor Lucy Anderson. Seeing her best friend happily shagged and knocked up is making her so blue. She realizes that her fiancé Marcus doesn’t do it for her anymore because he doesn’t have rock hard abs and a 25-inch prong she doesn’t feel the magic anymore. After all, this one is titled Jayden, so Marcus is definitely not the one, the poor guy.
“I know you’re not ‘in love’ with me, sweetheart,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “I think I’ve always known. But I just kind of thought that maybe I could love you enough for the both of us. Anyway, it is what it is. So don’t you feel guilty, okay? Maybe in another life… Just go out there and show the world how amazing and talented you are, sweetheart. And if things ever change… well, just make sure you look me up. You can stay here as long as you need. The rent is paid for the next six months, so you needn’t worry about any of that. The bank offered me a transfer last week to the city branch. I didn’t say no, I just asked for a little time to consider the offer. I guess part of me knew this day was coming.”
She’s certainly better off without him!
“Okay,” he replied, softly shaking his head. “But just promise me one thing, Lucy. Shoot for your dreams, and have a little faith in yourself. And if our paths ever cross again…”
… was she engaged to a unicorn or something? I keep hearing Mariah Carey’s Butterfly in my head as he sets her free—Lucy is gonna spread her legs wings and prepare to fu… er, fly, because she has become a butterfly-yyy-yyy...
As the maternity ward car park fills with heavily pregnant women, I pull out my phone and frantically tap out a text message.
Hey, Marcus. Just wondering how you’re getting on? Hope you’re well. Thinking of you. Lucy. XX
Wait, so she dumped him and is now sending him text messages that can make him harbor false hopes again? Is she auditioning to be a poster girl for the MGTOW movement?
A day later after sending that text to Marcus, she is like “Marcus who?”
Twenty six hours later I’m sat in front of the hottest guy I’ve ever laid eyes on. Jayden has certainly made an effort tonight. Wearing a short sleeve red shirt that clings to his thick biceps, his auburn hair is stylishly messy. Grinning at me through his big blue eyes, he lifts up the dinner menu.
I know I am supposed to relate to Lucy because she’s fat and I’m fat, and she’s hungry for hot abs and fat peens under the pretense that these are her true love (I suppose technically she isn’t lying), and I guess I’m supposed to be hungry for those things too, so she and me are now totally besties, right? Still, if that were to be the case, the author could have at least made Lucy less of a self-absorbed air bag. This is a woman that has Jayden Sancho listed in her phone contact list as “Future Husband” while she’s still engaged to the unicorn, for heaven’s sake.
That’s my problem with this story. It’s so… vapid. Dumb fat ho ditches her caring squeeze because she wants a hot guy that makes her experience waterfall down below, the moment she sees him, and spends the rest of the story putting out to him faster than a F1 driver on the track. These people are supposed to be adults, but they treat “true love” like a game of who makes whom hotter downstairs.
Still, the writing is fine, it’s just that the characters here make my skin crawl with how shallow and banal they are, so maybe it’s not that bad. Three oogies, perhaps…
Not knowing how the hell I’m going to do this, I raise the microphone to my lips, close my eyes and let the familiar music take hold of me. Pretending I’m seven years old and performing to a mirror in my tiny bedroom, my lips sync with the words I’ve sang a thousand times.
“Each day I live, I want to be,
a day to give, the best of me.
I’m only one, but not alone,
my finest day, is yet unknown.”Sensing an eerie calm across the crowd, I peel open my anxious eyes to a sea of peaceful faces. Swaying to the sound of my voice, they all seem enchanted by the power of the words. And, buried deep inside the dense wall of silence, my eyes fall upon the most perfect vision I’ve ever witnessed.
Taking her from his father’s arms, Jay cradles our daughter and gazes back up at the stage. Next to him stand my parents, both seemingly hypnotised by their daughter.
“You’re perfect,” my husband mimes up at me, washing and cleansing the fear away.
“I want one moment in time,
when I’m more than I thought I could be;
when all of my dreams are a heartbeat away,
and the answers are all up to me.
Give me one moment in time,
when I’m racing with destiny;
then in that one moment in time,
I will feel… I will feel… Eternity!”
What the… Sis, Whitney is dead, let her rest in peace. Now god knows how many of my brain cells are dead too. I think I won’t be able to sleep tonight, or maybe the next few nights too, because that scene is terrifying.
Why would the author do that to me?
