Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
I met Milo Corti during his self-destructive era, and he met me during mine. That night when we crossed paths at a college party, we only had one goal in mind: to feel good during our personal hell storms.
After we parted ways, I’d planned to never see him again. That was until I showed up to my first day as a student-teacher and I found him sitting right there in front of me.
Now I was forced to cross paths with the person who was meant to be nothing more than a fading memory.
The more time we spent together, the more drawn I felt toward him. When his world took a shift for the worst, I couldn’t help myself but to lean in closer. .
My whole life I’d always done the right thing. For the first time ever, I wanted to do something very wrong. I wanted to fall in love with the one person who was off-limits.
The problem with falling for something forbidden? Once you began to descend, you were destined to crash.
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PROLOGUE
Eleven Months Ago
My world,
The first year is the hardest.
That’s what I remember from when I lost my mother. I remember feeling as if the world were moving in slow motion, yet somehow spinning wildly out of control at a wicked speed all at once.
It was as if every little thing triggered me in some way. Even happy occasions felt depressing because I realized she wasn’t there to celebrate the big moments with me. What was worse was that she wasn’t there for the small moments. The small moments sometimes felt even more important to me than the big ones.
I’m sorry I’ll be missing out on the moments. The big ones. The small ones. The in-betweens. I’m sorry I won’t be there to give you the pieces of me you’ll need when the world gets heavy.
I’m sorry our goodbye came sooner than we’d hoped.
But I do want to leave you with something. A gift of sorts. It’s my recipe box. You know how much this means to me, and I want to pass it down to you. Hundreds of my favorite meals I’ve made for you throughout your life are within it. If you ever feel inspired to cook a meal, I want you to have this. I hope this helps you feel me when you lose your way. I hope you taste my love in every single bite.
I love you always. And then a little bit more after that.
Find me in the sunrises. I’ll always be there, waiting to shine on you.
Con amore,
Mama
CHAPTER 1
Starlet
January
Present Day
The day I turned fourteen, I created a life plan. I knew what I wanted and saw the roadmap to get everything I desired. Step one was to graduate from college with a degree in education like my mother did. Step two was to get engaged to my boyfriend, John, by graduation. Step three, start my teaching career and land a fantastic job. Then to have kids by twenty-three always seemed right.
I knew what my life was supposed to look like, and as I entered the second semester of my junior year of college, I was sure I was on the straight and narrow path to my dreams coming true.
I prided myself on being levelheaded. If there were a word to describe me, it would be perfectionist. I always did the right thing because I had an irrational fear of failure. I wasn’t one to step out of my security box, as I knew all the angles of said box. I knew the ins and outs of my protected walls of stability. I had no problem staying on the right path—I liked my safety net.
That afternoon, I stood in front of the full-length mirror of my shared dorm room, smoothing my hands over my white A-line dress. Beside said mirror was the vision board I’d created with every item I planned to accomplish. Many people updated their vision boards yearly, but I was lucky enough to have the same precise vision since I was a teenager. I knew who I was. Therefore, I knew what I was becoming, and that afternoon was bringing me one step closer to my happily ever after.
It was my twenty-first birthday, and my boyfriend, John, was going to propose to me that evening.
John wasn’t very clever when it came to surprises. When he told me I should get my nails done for my birthday and wear a white dress, it became clear what was happening. Plus, when I was at his dorm the other night studying for our physics exam, I’d opened the top drawer in his desk to find a pen and saw the ring box.
The timing couldn’t have been better, seeing as I wanted to be engaged for at least a year before marriage. If things went according to plan, we could have our first child by age twenty-three—only one year older than my parents were when they had me.
To say my parents’ love story was my inspiration was an understatement. Even though my mom passed away a few years ago, Dad still talked about her as if she were the greatest gift to the world. He wasn’t wrong about that, either. My mother was a saint.
In almost every way possible, I’d been my mother’s daughter. Every decision I’d made since she passed away was created with the idea of what she’d think about me due to said choices. I received perfect grades because I knew that would make her proud. I never cursed because she never did. I went into education because she was one of the best educators I’d ever known. I wore red lipstick and high heels because those were her two staples. I also wore her jewelry. Every single day, a piece of her rested against my body.
My mother was a beautiful Italian woman with a Mediterranean skin tone and dirty-blond hair, the opposite of mine. My father was a handsome Black man with deep-brown skin and the kindest eyes known to humanity. I had black hair that used to match Dad’s when he had hair on top of his head, and my dark brown eyes resembled Mom’s. Dad always said my skin was a golden sun-kissed tone, the perfect blend of my parents’ DNA. My hair, though, was mostly wild in its natural state. My curls were a daily task I had to deal with that neither of my parents ever experienced. Mom had mastered learning how to care for my hair, though, and before she passed away, she taught me all her tips and tricks.