Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
2
Four years later
It had been a long time, forever it almost seemed, since Freya had been back to her hometown. She’d finished college but was taking a few months off before she started job hunting. She may have been undecided when she began at the university, but her mind had been so focused on escaping. After she left home, she hadn’t thought twice about the woman or the house where she’d spent so many years.
But the months leading up to her departure had been tense, heavy, and heated. Elijah had finally moved out, gotten that divorce he’d spoken to Freya about, and then it was just Freya and Meghan. But Meghan hadn’t even paid attention to Freya, not when she found a new guy not even a month after Elijah had left. And then Freya had finally left, and she turned her back on everything without once looking back.
No conversation with Meghan, no thinking about what she was doing, how things were going with her, or if she’d ever see her again.
That had been four years ago. Freya was now twenty-two, had her nursing degree under her belt, and was doing something she never thought she’d do. She was heading back to her hometown.
“I bet it’s weird coming back here after all these years?” her friend Maurice said from beside her. He was driving the grueling twelve-hour trip back from the university, which they decided to do straight through. She looked over at the guy who had befriended her; her geeky but lovable friend who she’d lost her virginity to one drunken study night, a night neither really remembered but hadn’t the desire to repeat. He’d even gotten into a fight defending her honor. He was a good guy, and all those things had made her love him so much. But that was also in the past. They were just friends, the best of friends, and she didn’t know what she’d do without him.
His dark blond hair was short, but long enough in the front that it kind of swooped over his forehead. He wore these thin black glasses, and his blue eyes always seemed to regard her as if he knew what she was thinking. He was the total opposite of Elijah.
God, why was she even thinking about him?
She’d only spoken to him once since she’d gone to school, and it had been in the form of a surprise call from him. He’d been checking up on her a few months after she’d settled into her dorm freshman year. But ever since their conversation when she’d been drunk and he admitted his divorce to her, there was just something about him that she hadn’t been able to shake.
“Not weird, just kind of depressing,” she said. Looking out the passenger window, she pushed everything Elijah out of her head, but it was hard. She knew he still lived in town, and that his business had grown exponentially and internationally. He was wildly successful now, even more so than he’d been four years prior.
Stop thinking about him. Stop it.
She could see the concerned look on Maurice’s face in the reflection of the passenger side window and knew he’d try to comfort her because he was a good friend like that. He also knew everything about her and her past. She hadn’t kept anything from him.
They were approaching the city limits of Grapplers Corner, the town she’d been born in, grown up in, and vowed never to come back to. But this was her home, no matter how long she stayed away, and she’d told herself, at least not out loud, that even if Meghan had ruined the memories she had of this place, this was where she’d spent time with her father and mother.
“Just take this road about another mile or so. You’ll see a sign for Thorndale Avenue. Take a left and follow that for about ten minutes.” Maurice was silent as they made the rest of their drive, but she was glad for the silence and even welcomed it. There were times she had hated the solitude that being orphaned, alone, and having no family provided. It made her feel like she was just floating through this world with no purpose. But she’d remember all the good memories, the ones that far superseded the bad, and she knew that despite having no extended family, she wasn’t truly alone.
“Take a left up here. When you get to the end of the street, take a right. My house is the last on the left.” She spoke softly, adjusting herself on the seat as she stared straight ahead. For four years, she’d stayed away, but she honestly didn’t have any reason to come back.
Finally, Maurice pulled to a stop in front of the house where she’d grown up in, a house she had hated after her father passed away and she was forced to live in it until she could escape.