Seven Years In A Romance Novel Chapter 2

The interior of the car was suffocatingly quiet.

Mackenzie was completely passed out in the backseat, leaving me stuck in the passenger side. The atmosphere stretched tight with unspoken tension.

Ever since our fallout, Matthew and I hadn't seen each other for months. Sitting side by side felt entirely foreign.

Gancing at the rearview mirror, Matthew broke the silence. "Jerry has been looking everywhere for the two of you."

Jerry was the secondary male lead Mackenzie had loved to the point of foolishness. It was because of him that Mackenzie, just like me, had given up the chance to return to our real world three years ago.

"I know," I replied neutrally.

Seeing my indifferent response, Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand on the steering wheel, letting out a heavy sigh. "Jerry and Betty aren't what you think. They are just foster siblings..."

"I said I know," I cut him off cleanly.

When Mackenzie and I first glitched into this book, a system error left us completely unaware of the plot. We had to rely on each other, treating this place as our reality.

By the time the system finally activated, we had already fallen deeply in love with Matthew and Jerry. Even when the system offered us a ticket back to our real lives, we chose to stay behind.

Young women in love always do reckless, heartbreaking things for the men they cherish.

But every wall hits back. I had turned around, and now I was just waiting for Mackenzie to make her final choice.

"If you're trying to get me to convince Mackenzie to take Jerry back, you are barking up the wrong tree," I said, my voice hardening. "Even if Jerry and Betty were pure as snow, I would never take his side or do anything to hurt Mackenzie. Besides..."

I let out a cold laugh. "They aren't innocent at all."

Mackenzie had found Betty’s secret diary inside a lockbox in Jerry's private study, a room he had explicitly forbidden Mackenzie from entering. It was filled with Betty’s obsessive feelings for her foster brother, along with an unsent reply written by Jerry himself.

Line after line detailed his unspeakable love for Betty, explicitly noting how Mackenzie’s personality and expressive eyes reminded him so much of his true love.

After reading it, Mackenzie had vomited right beside the safe. She called me weeping uncontrollably: "Get me out of here. Please, Sam, get me away from him."

Mackenzie used to care about her appearance more than anything. But for the past two weeks, she had drowned herself in booze, crying in her sleep until her face was swollen beyond recognition.

Yet she looked in the mirror yesterday and asked me, "Do I look less like Betty now?"