Chapter One
January 2013
Most of the time, I think the business trips I have to take for work are short-lived.
Most of the time, I wish I could just stop…
For a minute.
Or two.
Take a look around.
Really see all the sights and learn to appreciate what the different states I visit have to offer.
I work for a small publishing company, running their publicity department and love the fact that I get to travel because of it. Book conventions excite me and that may be because I am a book nerd at heart.
The city of Boston, state of Massachusetts.
A place where they say car minus the ‘r’, not to mention a place where they hosted a tea party that went down in history.
A depressing sigh escapes my lips as I pull out of the Starbucks drive-thru with my venti caramel macchiato nestled safely in my center consul. Not just because I’m leaving Boston without a chance to really experience the city in all of its glory, but because I see a couple in the window of the coffee shop. A man with thick, spiked mahogany hair and a woman, with shiny red ringlets falling into her pale face.
She laughs.
He laughs.
She bites her lower lip in a bashful manner.
He reaches over and tucks a shiny red curl behind her ear.
They’re clearly head over heels for one another.
For a second I can feel my face pulling and I almost smile then the smile slips from my lips. Witnessing this tender display of affection almost breaks me. The couple, they look so happy. So in love. It reminds me of a time in my life where I felt the same way.
It reminds me of a time in my life where I thought I’d always feel the same way.
Pain.
A deep, stabbing, searing pain punctures my heart and I mentally curse for putting myself through this cinematic torture. It’s at that moment that I fall apart.
My face is a red hot poker removed from the hearth of a fireplace.
Tears rain down my cheeks to put out the blaze.
Sobs leave my throat so hard and so close together that I can barely breathe.