Your Truth is Out There (Find Your Truth Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

attackers, which seemed odd, given the way she’d looked at him as they’d dragged him away the night before. Perhaps she hadn’t completely deserted him after all. Henry could hear her voice in his mind, but couldn’t quite make out what she was doing.
    “Hey,” she had said, getting the attention of the frat-pack leader. “Not so hard. I said to knock him around a little, but don’t break anything. If he ends up in the hospital, it will end up costing me, and that will end up costing you.”
    “Why, yes ma’am,” the leader had said back to her in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “The only problem is that it’s personal now. The son-of-a-bitch ralphed on me, and I’ll break whatever I damn well please.”
    “Is that so?” asked Lucy, her voice making it clear—to Henry at least—that she hadn’t played her trump card yet. “In that case, I’d suggest you smile pretty for the cameras, because I have you, all of you, on record assaulting my poor defenseless husband.”
    There was a pause, in which Henry could only guess the frat pack leader was looking around for the cameras and weighing his options, only to realize he had no choice other than to do Lucy’s bidding.
    “Now,” said Lucy, “do your damn job as instructed and you’ll get paid. Do anything else and you’ll go to jail. Any questions? Oh, and don’t bother trying to destroy the cameras or come after me for the memory card, because there are more than one, and I’ve already put a failsafe in place. Anything happens to me, you’ll be in jail before you know what hit you. Now finish up and get out of here, I have to work in the morning. And make sure you wrap him up in that sleeping bag like I told you, it’s going to be a cold one tonight, and frostbite means doctor bills.”
    In spite of his pain, Henry couldn’t help but smile just a little. Lucy was nothing if not predictable. She clearly hated him, so much so that she hired a group of fraternity thugs to beat him up last night. Be that as it may, there was a truth in her predictability, a consistency that was to be admired. To be sure, it was an ugly, vicious truth, but it was a truth just the same. And even though her viciousness was aimed at him, at least she was being true to herself. He laid there a while longer, oscillating between the physical pain in his body, the emotional despair in his heart, and the jealous rage he felt toward a despicable woman who was somehow more real, more honest, and truer to herself than he’d ever been to his own needs and desires. He had finally decided he could no longer remain prostrate in his back yard, when the full impact of last night’s events hit him at last.
    My God, he thought, it’s my fault. I’m the one to blame. Not for getting the crap beat out of me, of course, but for the way my life has turned out. All these years I’ve been telling myself I haven’t had a choice, that I’ve been forced one way and then another by the people around me. But I’m the one who let them. My parents, Lucy, they’ve been true to themselves, and I’ve blamed them for not allowing me to be true to my own self, but it’s not their fault. I’m the only one who can decide whether I’m going to follow my truth, or allow myself to be pushed around by others.
    With more than a few grunts and groans, Henry forced himself onto his feet.
    That ends now.
    He made his way to the back porch. As he reached for the door handle, he noticed a note taped to the window. It was from Lucy.
     
    Henry,
    I don’t know how much you’ll remember from last night, and honestly, I don’t care. I’m sick and tired of your constant failures and they have to stop. I kept them from hurting you too badly, but only because I’m giving you one last chance. Get your job back at Telasco, or find another one that pays the same or better – I don’t care which, but don’t come back until you do.
     
    He pulled the note from the door, crumpled it into a ball, tossed it into