Is this a nightmare?
I pinch my forearm then slap a finger to my neck, checking my pulse.
Nope. I’m wide awake. So it’s alivingnightmare.
My Pilates instructor’s voice pops into my head:Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth.It’s supposed to help.
It doesn’t.
He moved in with his dog…like they are playing house. Does Fia think he is here to save the day? What the hell is he even doing back?
Last I heard, he was in Southern California, probably pretending his past didn’t exist.
I brush the dirt streaks off my black leather leggings from his dog’s paws—Tank—and stop to check myself out in a parked car’s window. The window distorts my heart-shaped face, and even though I just got my thick eyebrows tamed, they look crazy. So I look as crazy as I feel right now.
I pull my vibrating phone from my pocket, seeing a missed call from Audrey. Straightening myself, I step to the side so a couple can pass me on the sidewalk and call her back.
“Hey, sorry,” she says over the clang of metal mixing bowls and blenders. “Quick question for you.”
Audrey is my best friend in the entire world. We’ve been inseparable since freshman orientation at UNC. Which also means she’ll be able to hear distress in my voice—even a hundred miles away.
However, there’s a lot Audrey doesn’t know about my lifebeforecollege. No one does, and I prefer it that way. When I left this town, I got to be someone new. I didn’t have to be the girl whose best friend and brother were in prison, whose parents left her—none of that.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I chew my lip, glancing back to make sure Fia and Jesse aren’t following me down the sidewalk. They aren’t. It’s just me, speed-walking down an oak-tree lined street like a madwoman.
“Do you want to grab dinner Friday before we check into the spa? There’s a new Mediterranean place opening north of downtown, and I can make a reservation.”
My stomach drops.Damn it.The spa day we planned months ago is at the end of this week, on the opposite end of the state in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was supposed to be a pre-Christmas getaway, an indulgent treat for both of us after a year of really hard work.
I stomp my heeled boot into the concrete sidewalk and toss my head back toward the gray sky. “You’re going to hate me,” I groan into the phone.
The whisking noise stops. “Uh-oh…what’s going on, Pen?”
I exhale sharply and squeeze my eyelids shut. “I can’t go this weekend.” I brace for herdisappointment. I hate letting people down.
“What? Is everything okay?” I picture her adjusting her perfect chocolate-brown hair.
“I’ve been in Wilmington for an hour, and everything’s already fucked.” I laugh—sharpand humorless—and stop at a crosswalk, debatingwhich way to walk. Back isn’t an option. I’ll walk all the way to the ocean if I have to.
“Is Fia okay?” Her voice is gentle now, full of concern. I wish I could teleport to her front porch, where she’d hand me coffee, hug me, and let me rant.
“Other than the fact that she is six months pregnant...yeah, she seems great and totally aloof to her reality.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yep.”
I’m silent for a moment, running a hand through my frazzled ponytail, finally knowing which way I’m heading.
“What else is going on?” she asks carefully.
“Just…ghosts from my past.” I’m not sure how much to divulge. I’ve kept that door sealed for years, but Audrey waits. She knows me—I always crack eventually, and she’s the only person I trust right now.
“Okay, so Fia has a new roommate.”
“Oh?”
“And it’s my high school ex. Jesse.”
