Torn

Chapter Twenty-Five

DEDICATED TO girlychica for voting on every chapter. Thank you :)

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Lottie's POV

I was horrified. I knew I was no mathematician but I didn't understand how Dean didn't see the blatantly obvious.

Could you come up here please? I asked him through our link. Immediately, I felt him start to move. It was a weird feeling, something new that came with our closer relationship but it was a good kind of weird.

I welcomed it.

Moments after I had called, Dean appeared at the doorway.

"Yeah?" he asked, coming in and sitting across from me.

I was in his office, looking over financial reports. Yes, I was an artist who knew next to nothing about numbers but hell, I needed to know our money situation. I was good at looking after myself and to do that, I needed to be good with money so that I always knew what I had to live on.

This was no different. The numbers were bigger but I managed.

Dean gaped at his desk. I had organized his papers the best I could to try and make sense of them. And my God, I had never been so horrified.

"Honey, who does all your expenses?" I asked him calmly. He shrugged.

"I don't really know. I don't think anyone around here really bothers with that sort of thing. Most bills are taken automatically from the pack account" he said.

I face palmed myself.

"No wonder you're so deep in debt. I can't even imagine how you've gotten yourself in such a hole" I muttered. He instantly put up a defensive front.

"Hey, we've managed. Besides, we had to rebuild after the fire. That took out almost all of our savings" he said hotly. I sighed and rubbed my head.

I was a creative person and forcing myself to work with numbers was giving me a huge headache. Ugh, I hated doing this sort of thing but someone needed to.

This pack was destitute and they didn't even know it!

"Well, I don't think that we'll have enough money to cover everything. I knew you took us in for our money but even if we gave you all of it, it'd only be a drop in the bucket" I told him. He snorted, obviously not believing me.

I took out a piece of purple paper where I had totaled the debt and stated where certain amounts went. I was careful about that. I didn't want to pay anyone more than I had to.

When I gave it to Dean, his jaw dropped again and he stared uncomprehendingly at the small slip of paper.

I had to smack his head for him to wake from his temporary stupor. Even that barely worked.

"How?..." he still seemed in shock. I nodded, satisfied that he at least knew how serious this was.

"Look, I know how we can manage but we're going to need to go without a few things from now on" I told him, showing him a second sheet, pink this time, where I put all the things we had to cancel our subscriptions for.

He frowned at it then looked at me.

"I thought that you were more of a creative person" he said finally. I knew where the confusion was. Normally, people were strictly left brain or right brain. I wasn't an exception but I at least knew how to use a calculator and how to use an excel spreadsheet.

I shrugged and let him think what he wanted. If he wanted to think I was some sort of genius, who was I to stop him?

"But we can't cancel our cable and internet connections!" he exclaimed, looking over the list with horrified eyes.