Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 3 | The Farm Craven Boyd (the reading list book .txt) 📖

example, and I took all my anger, frustrations, and fear out on you. I sort of feel bad, and want to say I’m sorry, but I don’t know if you deserve that. Or this. Or all of this fuckery that we’re all forced into here. I really wish we could both just start over without all of this… anger and fear and pain.”

Scorpia had started off with an alarmed, confused expression, but it slowly relaxed as did her body. She wrapped her arms around her sides and started crying softly.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a while.

“I’m sorry too,” Angelica told her. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes,” she said after a minute, “but…” Scorpia’s words trailed off as she started crying again.

“Excuse me, is there a problem here?” The doctor had slipped in the room without making a sound.

Angelica saw that it was a regular doctor, not the one who kidnapped her.

“No, no problem at all,” Angelica said sweetly. “Just checking on a friend.”

“Is that right?” he pointedly asked Scorpia.

She bit her lip, then looked at Angelica, then back up to the doc, and nodded.

“Ok, listen. I know she was beaten severely by her three roommates, and you pretty much fit the description—”

“I came here to apologize, and see how she’s doing,” Angel interrupted.

The doctor grunted. Something beeped overhead, and a voice asked for Doctor Leyton in another room.

“If you do anything but apologize, I’m going to have you put in isolation,” Doctor Leyton said, pointing at Angel, then left the room.

Angelica waited for the door to swing shut, then started chuckling, and turned to see Scorpia staring at her in confusion.

“So now you’re going to beat me quietly?” Her words were almost a whisper.

“I see no reason to beat you ever again, as long as you’re not such a bully. Hell, a little girl like me could use a big friend in a joint like this. And nobody has to know how it happened. It’s not like Jill and April are going to tell anybody. For all they know out there, it was three of us and the entire second floor.”

“What do you need?” Scorpia asked simply.

“Nothing. Life is short and, after they took you out of the room, I sat up and thought about you. What would make a woman so angry and bitter that she’d be a bully? Sadly, I came up with a lot of shit, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“Self loathing,” Scorpia said quietly.

“What?” Angelica asked.

“So, I know you hate some of the shit I am, or where I come from, but I did spend a good year in therapy once after I got in some trouble. Judge said therapy or anger management. I stuck with the therapy after the six weeks mandated.”

“So, you’re actually pretty smart, despite doing some dumbass shit,” Angelica said, patting her leg. “You smell better too.”

Scorpia just looked at her indignantly for a second, then snorted. Soon she was laughing softly, wiping her eyes clear. Angel couldn’t help but join in for a few moments.

“You’re something else,” Scorpia said quietly.

“I had to be,” Angelica told her. “Try growing up in podunk motherfucking Arkansas. Nobody ever took me seriously because I’m so little. I was the scrawny girl who didn’t get boobs until after I had my baby. I get the self loathing part, but I channeled my anger another way—”

“You’re kind of hot,” Scorpia said, interrupting her.

“Whoa, I’m not like that—”

“Sorry, I meant… No, I meant, you’re being too hard on yourself and looking past the positive.”

“More psych stuff?” Angelica asked her.

Scorpia shrugged and wiped her eyes. “I honestly didn’t believe in any of it until recently.”

“How come?” Angelica asked her.

“Something happened to you, to make you the woman you are. Same way I am the way I am. Even though our lives turned out different… some parts sound the same. Maybe the therapists weren’t too far off.”

“It wasn’t that something happened to me really,” Angelica said, tapping a finger on her chin for a moment. “I met somebody, and from middle school on, I tried to get his attention.”

“Your husband?” Scorpia asked.

“Yeah. See, he’s older than me by a few years, we weren’t even in the same school. It was love at first sight. And I just… This is going to sound so stalker-like… but I wanted to be more than the skinny girl with no boobs. I wanted to stand out, so he’d notice me.”

“Whoa, now slow down,” Scorpia said. “Tell me about him first.”

“Oh… um… he’s kind of a jack of all trades right now, but he just finished his 20 years in the military. He’s mostly interested in ranching and farming. His dad died in a trucking accident, and his Mom, Goldie, she lives with—”

“No, tell me about him,” Scorpia said, noting that Angel was fidgeting. “You changed for a guy, and you started doing it in middle school?”

“I was thirteen when I first met him. I didn’t get to ask him out until I was twenty-two. He went into the Army. I caught up with him when he came back between deployments.”

“Holy crap. You held a torch for him for eight or nine years?”

“Yeah, but he doesn't really know that,” Angelica said. “It sounds creepy, and I know it’s half a step away from stalking. It’s why I got into self defense classes, then picked up a few different forms of Karate and Krav Maga.”

“So, you could beat him up? God, I can only imagine, and I’m no skinny guy.”

“Oh, he’s not skinny,” Angelica said, smiling. “I come up to his chest, roughly.”

Scorpia chuckled. “So, he’s a big guy?”

“I tease him that he’s just a shaved down sasquatch sometimes. Some days it seems he’s got to be almost seven feet tall and over three hundred pounds.”

“Holy shit!” Scorpia’s eyes got big.

“Yeah. See, Rob had a reputation as a scrapper. I guess being as big as a grown man in grade school made him a target for the older kids. He was more than