For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

going to the trouble to keep the smell away? What the fuck??? I can taste it, that menthol shit. I’ve seen stuff under people’s noses before but I can’t remember where. I don’t know what any of this means.

 

Now she wants me to write about my ‘true self’. I told her I don’t know what the fuck that means but she just said I’d know with time and to write about my life. I have to do whatever she says or she might hurt me again.

 

So I was fucking born in San Francisco, California, nineteen years ago to Quentin and Eleanor Rye FUCK! FUCK YOU THIS

I was born in San Francisco, California, nineteen years ago to Quentin and Eleanor Rye. I was brought up in a Christian home. My parents separated after my 17th birthday. It was hard but God carried me through it like He’ll carry me through this. They separated because Daddy was sick of the religious stuff and Mom doesn’t like the books he writes and films he makes. I don’t get that because it’s his work and it got us nice houses and bought her all the shit she always wanted, although I guess he did have a gun stuck in my mouth one time. So anyway, I told her all that and we argued and I moved out when I turned 18. Now I live in an apartment Daddy bought me. I’m so grateful for everything he does. Grateful for Mom, too. I love them both so much. I hope they know that.

 

I wish they were still together, especially now. Maybe what’s happening to me wouldn’t be as bad for them if they were. I think they split up because they didn’t understand each other. I’ll get out of here and I’ll marry someone who understands me. I’ve also been told to write about my tattoo, and that’s it. They’re roses spiralling around my ring finger. They symbolise my waiting for the right man, someone who will love me and never leave me. Someone who will understand me.

 

I’m so grateful to both my parents, and even though me and Mom fell out, I still want her to know I love her and I’m grateful she showed me Jesus because He’ll get me through this and I’ll come out the other side even stronger. Jesus went through hell for me, and I’ll go through hell for Him. Mom, thank you for teaching me sex before marriage is bad and that drugs are evil and for showing me the right path. When I get out of here, I’ll be the best person I can be and I’ll work so hard at my acting career and you’ll be so proud of me. I love you both to the end of the world.

 

You want me to write about myself? My ‘true self’? Sure. You got it.

 

I LOVE myself. I LOVE everything about my life – my Daddy, my Mom, and all the opportunities I’ve been given. I WON’T be broken. Whether by my love for my parents or for God, I WON’T be broken. You hear me?! Whatever you do to me, I WILL find the strength to go on. I WILL make it out of here. LOVE will see me through.

 

I won’t be broken, bitch.

27

Thomas Wakefield did not approve of television. Along with Sylvia’s romance novels, it held a high ranking on the list of sins forbidden in the Wakefield house – yet one sat in the attic.

The huge wooden set had been purchased for the sole purpose of watching the Queen’s televised Christmas Day speech every year. The ritual would be foreshadowed by Thomas’s grunting as he heaved the Finlux out of the attic and down the stairs into the living room, where it would sit all morning. Its bulbous blank screen bulged like an eyeball until, finally, it would awaken at 3 p.m. Following the royal drawl, the television once again faced expulsion for another twelve months.

Nearly thirty years later, it was the Wakefield daughter hauling the set downstairs. The next task would be the positioning of its aerial, those mystical metal antennae her father had manoeuvred with all the focus of a wizard performing an ancient ritual. Would the great, glass eye respond to her clumsy handling of the metal wands?

The electronic snowstorm fizzled into…a boat? Yes, a fantastically affordable Mediterranean cruise. She flicked the channel, a burst of static transforming the ship into a reception desk. Three over-tanned, over-acting hotel receptionists had it out over who was in love with whom.

She looked at the time. Six o’clock.

She cycled through the channels until another desk appeared, this time belonging to a news anchor. Several stories were detailed, first regarding conflicts in lands of which she knew nothing, then relating to scandals involving names she knew even less of. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched a television. Her eyes were already aching when, finally, the anchor spoke the word she’d been waiting for.

Rye.

‘The search for the missing daughter of horror novelist, filmmaker, and philanthropist Quentin C. Rye continues, as police urge anyone with information to come forward.’ Renata knelt in front of the six o’clock news, staring into the screen. ‘Miss Rye’s parents have reportedly taken full-time residency in Millbury Peak, where Sandie was last seen. Mr and Mrs Rye have just given a press conference from the town, where Mr Rye’s production company had been filming on location before cancelling all current projects to focus on the search for Sandie. Reporting from Millbury Peak earlier, here’s Natasha.’

Renata endured Natasha’s introduction before the camera finally panned to a stage blasted by flashing cameras. Chief Inspector Blyth and two colleagues sat with a well-dressed blonde woman laden with jewellery whose red, unrested eyes betrayed her identity as Sandie’s mother, Eleanor.

Next to her sat Rye.

He would have been an