Page 7 of No Place Like Home

Her voice rang loud and clear. I shook that feeling away and read what it said.

“We’ll survive, you and I.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Yeah, I agreed that the board was on crack sometimes. I looked at the counter, and I saw them before they saw me. Emma and Freya were chitchatting. Even though it had been years since I had worked here, some things never changed, and there was comfort in that.

“You know, mamas, it hurts that I’m not getting love right now,” I said as I approached them.

Emma was the first to look at me since she faced my way, then Freya. They both came out of the back to greet me.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Freya’s smile was instantly replaced, and she was glaring at me. Once she was in front of me, she punched me.

“Damn, that’s how it is?” I questioned her.

“You left town….” Emma said, soft-spoken.

It was nothing new. I was always coming and going.

“But this time, you didn’t want contact from any of us.”

I scratched behind my neck and smiled sheepishly at her. Leo had changed my shit after a fan had gotten hold of my cellphone number, and my mind had not been in a place to send everyone my contact information.

“Sorry. I swear I thought Leo would have handled that.”

Freya stuck her tongue out.

“I thought Leo would have handled that,” she mocked. “You’re too good to text us yourself?”

That wasn’t it, and because Freya had no filter, she didn’t know when to shut it.

“I don’t know what happened between the two—”

“Can we not talk about that?” I pressed them both with a look.

I knew gossip spread here faster than TMZ, and whatever happened between her and me would stay that way for now. Sooner or later, we were bound to run into each other, and I didn’t need Freya to throw it in my face just how well she had been doing. Jess was good at that, wasn’t she? Hiding her pain from others.

CHAPTERTWO

Present

28 years old

Growing up,there were a lot of things I had longed for. A new pair of tennis shoes because I was tired of being made fun of for the holes in mine. A new doll because the one I had was found by the dumpster and it was missing half its hair. The one thing I longed for the most was a mother who would defend her kids and a father who wasn’t an addict.

I didn’t think many people realized just how much addiction ruined a family. My father was known as the town drunk. Sunny Pines was so small that everyone knew us because he was our father, but no one ever went beyond that. They never knew just how much we had to struggle because my father chose his addiction over everything, something I also tried to ignore.

Some of us are free to be who we are as we grow up. Others have to put on a show. We have one face we show the world and the one we hide our pain in. We wear a mask because if people saw the real us, it would scare them off.

My mother learned the hard way that you couldn't save someone who didn’t want to be saved, and I realized that you couldn’t help someone who didn’t want to be helped—and that someone had been me.

I lied. I pretended and moved on, thinking I was fine. Damaged people will damage other people, and I had. As sad as it sounded, if I could have gone back in time, I wouldn’t have changed anything. We all needed a catalyst to make us realize we were drowning, and as sad as it was, he had been mine.

I looked in my rearview mirror, and warmth spread through me. I was scared—lies, I was terrified—but I knew that if I stayed away any longer, I would never forgive myself. Our mistakes always came back to haunt us, and sooner or later, the truth would come out.

Sunny Pines was dead at night, so I chose that moment to come back through town. I knew I would have a thousand and one explanations to give out. I’d had zero contact with anyone other than Prescott, the town mayor and Juliet’s oldest brother. I knew they would be upset—but now I knew that you couldn’t heal in the place that had once broken you.

And this town had broken me way before Quincy Hardwell ever came along.