The Reunion
Table of Contents
Free Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Beneath the Lights
Also By Leslie Johnson
About the Author
The Reunion
Leslie Johnson
Atrevida Publishing
Copyright © 2018 by Leslie Johnson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Free Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Beneath the Lights
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Also By Leslie Johnson
About the Author
Free Book
http://lesliejohnsonauthor.com/sign-up-for-updates/
One
Fifty eight, fifty nine, sixty, I laugh to myself when Don’s eyes avert to the waitresses ass, again.
Fifty eight, fifty nine, sixty, his eyes switch back to me. Don continues to boast about his mad lifting skills, while his eyes, like clock work, move back to the waitress’ ass every sixty seconds. If anything, he’s consistent.
“Even with a torn rotator cuff I can still lift more than anyone at my gym.” Don gave me a broad smile, showing off his blinding white teeth offset against his fake tanned skin.
I don’t bother trying to hide my phone as I check it. A shocked gasp comes out before I can stop it. My phone enlightens me that this date only started ten minutes ago and I’m stunned.
“I know, babe. It’s impressive,” Don says, confusing my gasp at the crawling time as being in awe by his shear strength.
How could it have been only ten minutes? This was the blind date from hell and even his spot-on ass checking timing wasn’t going to amuse me enough to get me through appetizers.
My phone rings and I clutch at it like a life preserver.
“I’m sorry I have to get this.” I explain to Don who was on the ass watching count.
“Hey, Nicole how’s the gym rat?” my best friend Maria and current inflatable life saving device asks.
“Are you okay?” I ask into the phone not having to feign surprise, because at that moment Don’s callused palm slides up my leg with no intention of stopping until he reaches his maximum heart rate.
My hand slams onto his roaming palm stopping him from going any further.
“I’m sorry, I have to go. My best friends dog just got hit by a car.” I tell gym rat.
“That bad, huh? I’m out of ice cream so pick some up on the way over.” Maria sounds amused over the phone.
“I’ll be right there.” I throw my purse over my shoulder and hastily stand, knocking Don’s hand off my thigh in the process.
“Wait doll. Do you want me go with you?” Don asks.
I turn around thinking maybe I misjudged him, but his eyes are locked on another waitress’ ass. Huffing out my annoyance of wasting a fraction of my day on this douche canoe I storm out of the restaurant.
“Where to sweetheart?” the cabbie asks when I jump in.
“Grocery store first. I need ice cream.”
The cabbie laughs as he speeds off into the night, swerving in and out of cars recognizing my dire need for an ice sugar band aide. Thank god for New York taxi drivers.
The door opens before I can even knock. Maria, my best friend and confidant holds out a spoon and I yank it out of her hand.
We crash onto the couch each of us clutching our pints and digging in.
“He couldn’t have been that consistent,” Maria says flicking her dark brown hair out of her eyes after I tell her about the disastrous ten minute date.
“Believe me he was. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t counting in his head with me.”
Maria laughed and a pang of envy hit me.
Maria and I met at the dentist office we both work at and we’re complete opposites. She runs the front office and is always dressed professionally and gorgeous. I’m a dental hygienist dressed in spit covered scrubs all day long. Not attractive.
Besides our differing work attire, Maria has short black hair and beautiful mocha colored skin which is in complete contrast to my long blonde locks and New York pallor. Maria has curves for days fitting her short frame perfectly, while I’m average height and shaped like a board. If we weren’t friends I would hate her.
“Maybe I should just take Chris back,” I say putting my empty ice cream on the table.
“Stop that stupid thinking right now.” Maria scowls as she sets her ice down next to mine.
“Why? It would make everyone happy.”
“It wouldn’t make me happy. It wouldn’t make you happy.”
“But it would get my parents off my back and I wouldn’t have to go through another date from hell like I just did.” I whine.
“Chris is a rat bastard and if I ever come across him I will rip his dick off and shove it down his throat.”
“Maybe he just needed to get it out of his system.”
Maria’s hands latch onto my shoulders as she looks directly at me. “Chris Bennett was doing your neighbor, in your house, the day before your wedding. He is an asshole. Do you remember how heartbroken you were?”
Maria keeps talking, not letting me answer her.
“Because I do. It may have been almost a year ago, but I remember you wallowing on this very same couch for over a month trying to get over his cheating ass. You deserve better and I refuse to let you go back to him. I’m too good of a friend to let that happen. Once a cheater always a cheater.”
“But my dad,” I say and Maria holds up her hand stopping my flimsy excuse.
Richard Stewart, my father cheated on my mom when I was only thirteen. Fifteen years later my parents are still together. It was one of the excuses my parents used to try and mend my broken engagement, and the reason I licked my wounds at Maria’s house instead of theirs.
“You’re not your parents. I’m not saying your mom was wrong by forgiving your dad and taking him back, but it’s not the same. If you took Chris back it would break you inside and your beautiful soul would wither away and die. I promise you your man is out there. You just haven’t kissed the right frog yet.”
At her words an image of Archer Frost, my first love, my first everything enters my head. It wasn’t the first time my brain has conjured up an image of Archer. Ever since I received an invitation to my ten-year high school reunion his face has been popping up randomly.
“Have you tried Matters of the Heart?” Maria asks nudging my phone toward me.
“No, I don’t need a romance blog to help me.”
I thrust my phone in my purse so she can’t try to get on the site without my permission.
“It’s not just a blog. It’s a forum where everyone is supportive and gives you advice based on their personal journey. They have experts who are there to get you through what ever you are going through. It helped my cousin Susan get through her break up and now she is engaged to love of her life.”
“Susan as in your crazy cousin who tried to light her ex on fire?”
Maria winces and I know my answer.
“Here I’ll email you the link just in case.”
I roll
my eyes but it doesn’t stop Maria from grabbing her phone and typing away Maria has been pressing this website since I walked in on Chris mid thrust almost a year ago. She was like a dog with a bone, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear about how a website was going to magically fix my problems.
“I’m going to get out of here,” I tell Maria getting up and hugging her.
“Think about what I said.”
I nod knowing there’s no way I will air my dirty laundry on a website for the world to judge me. I love Maria, but not that much.
Two
The sound of the door closing echoes throughout my empty house as I came barreling inside slamming the door behind me. Claudette, was checking her mail when I pulled into the driveway. Seeing her is always a painful reminder of what I lost a year ago.
Violent flashes of catching her and Chris on our brand new couch surrounded by unopened wedding presents occur every time I see her. Being my neighbor makes it impossible to ignore her. A normal day of being the neighbor of the woman who helped destroy my future is agonizing enough; today it bumped up to excruciating.
As soon as I kicked Chris the curb I tried to sell the house. A place we shared during our two year long engagement that Chris let me keep since he was the one to ruin our relationship.
For one thing it was too large and impractical for one person. For a more personal reason, Claudette was an eyesore. Lucky for me, the cheating whore next door was not something you have to disclose. Unfortunately, the housing market, like everything else in my life, was not on my side. Unless I’m willing to take a significant financial hit, selling the house is in the way distant future.
My feet take me straight to the kitchen and once there my hands take over, opening a bottle of wine. Ice cream isn’t strong enough after enduring a disastrous date and seeing Claudette.
Today I need something stronger.
My phone dings and I unearth it out of my purse. It’s another plea from Maria asking me to give Matters of the Heart a chance.
“What the hell can it hurt?” I ask emptying the bottle of wine into my glass.
My fingers itch to hit the website link, just to peek. Not sure if I should blame the wine or Maria’s insistence, I press it and watch in horror as the website pulls up. I reach for my wine glass without taking my eyes off the loading site. Draining the remainder of the alcohol, I continue to stare.
“It looks professional enough,” I mutter to myself, and it does.
For some reason I expected the website to be full of cheese, complete with cartoon hearts and cupids whizzing around. Instead it appears well organized, breaking down individual forums where people can seek help from their peers or from experts the website boasted about employing.
My fingers took off in a flurry before I was able to think about what I was doing. I pour my heart out, explaining everything that happened to me in the past year. All the gritty heart-breaking details about Chris’ betrayal and our broken engagement went flying out and landing on the screen.
On a roll, I add my dad’s wrong doing to my mom and the devastation I felt as a young teen. Ending my rant with my parents begging me to listen to Chris and mend our broken relationship. I left nothing out and by the time I finish tears run down my cheeks.
My body shakes as the adrenaline courses through it. This poor website just received years of pent up emotional turmoil. As I wipe the tears now drying on my face away I press send, letting my cathartic ramblings about bad times gone worse zip through the world wide web and into what I hope to be an experts inbox.
Your message has been sent, appears on my phone screen and I sigh deeply. The process of writing my tragic story of love eased the weight sitting over my heart. I decide right there at my kitchen table with an empty bottle of wine perched on it, that even if I didn’t get the life changing advice the website advertised the liberating feeling of releasing my story was enough.
Feeling lighter than I have in a year I throw the empty bottle into the recycling and get ready for bed. My phone is next to me charging on my nightstand as I drift to sleep a drunken smile lighting my face.
In my dream, it’s our high school graduation both Archer and me dressed in cap and gown, our future right in front of us. Archer’s trying to convince me to be spontaneous with him. My eyes consume his body trying to memorize every detail I can, not bothering to listen to his argument.
I heard it before on the very day I’m dreaming about and I don’t want to relive the heartfelt words again. Archer’s six-foot two frame is just how I remember it. He’s the perfect height for me to fit snuggly to him when he throws his arm around my shoulder, which I desperately want him to do. His lean body’s covered in muscle from working on his daddy’s farm and when I used to stroke them his brown eyes sparkled with mischief.
Frustration swirls around me as I try to get him to understand I can’t just throw everything away on a whim. Every time he opens his mouth my heart shatters more. I stomp my foot to the ground just as I did all those years ago except this time I jerk awake in my bed. My hands hit the mattress knowing I won’t be able to fall back asleep and spend more time with dream Archer. Even though I dreamt the same argument, just seeing a figment of him after ten years makes me want to down a sleeping pill to get back to him.
A dinging rings out next to my head and I notice my phone’s lit up. Reaching over I grab it and my breath hitches, seeing I have a response from Matters of the Heart. My finger dances over the open button not sure if I should read it or not. I just enjoyed the best night sleep I’ve had since the Chris incident, and I don’t see how a response could give me anymore closure.
Ignoring my phone, I jump into the shower. It’s my day off and I plan on watching mindless TV for the remainder of it while scarfing down a whole pizza by myself. My thoughts keep drifting to my phone laying on my bed and what a professional thought of my crazy word vomit from last night. I giggle picturing an old man in an argyle sweater reading my confession with wide traumatized eyes.
“Just a peek.” I tell myself, throwing on my robe and snatching up my phone.
I go to the kitchen and sip a cup of coffee, leaning on the counter. Just like the website, the response is not what I expected. Instead of sage advice on how to move on with my life and find peace in the past there’s a series of questions pertaining to my perfect man and relationship.
Archer’s chiseled cheeks and jaw line is front and center as I read through them. I absorb the reality that Chris never entered my mind. Maria’s right, he wasn’t the one for me.
The websites response is scary as if the expert manifested it out of my own head. Each question makes me think more and more about Archer and what we could have had if we could have worked out our differences.
My answers not only describe my perfect man’s physical attributes as Archer but also my perfect relationship was ripped right out of my high school experience with Archer.
My eyes drift to the high school reunion invitation under a magnet of a frog holding a Be Brave sign. A magnet Archer got me for my tenth birthday because of my fascination with amphibians.
Throwing caution to the wind, I RSVP to the reunion and reserve a hotel room for the week. To ensure my decision I book a nonrefundable flight. I hold my breath until the confirmation email pops into my inbox.
There’s no turning back now.
Three
Two weeks after my momentary lapse of sanity I’m standing in front of my high school gym. The weather is hot and sticky, and it feels like home. I glance around the parking lot trying to get a glimpse of the people filing out of their cars. The one thing about small towns is everything is conveniently located.
My hotel, the only hotel in the town, is directly across the high school. I hope walking across the street and through the parking lot would give me time to compose myself. That wasn’t what was happening.
My nerves are jumpy and I resist the urge to wipe my sweaty palms down the front of my bright red gown, Archer’s favorite color. I
roll my eyes. It’s amazing how being near my old high school reverted me back to acting like a high schooler.
“He probably won’t even be here,” I whisper to myself after ensuring nobody’s close enough to hear me.
Archer hated high school and would tell me daily I was the only reason he showed up.
Throwing my shoulders back I walk as steady as I can toward the gym. My knees are knocking and I’m grateful I chose a full-length gown for this black-tie event.
“Nicole Stewart is that you?” A high-pitched voice hit my ears as soon as I enter the gymnasium.
Panic sets in as I stare at a woman in a fluffy pink dress coming straight at me. My mind goes through my high school yearbook trying to place a name with the woman eating up the linoleum between us.
“You look amazing,” I say stalling for time, begging the dark recesses of my brain to find a name.
“Thank you. You look good too. I guess it’s all that city livin’. I’ve heard they have the best doctors to keep you from falling apart,” no name pink dress says as her eyes roam all over my face as if she’s looking for face lift scars or botox injection sites.
Bingo, I think to myself. Her face may not have been familiar, but her back handed compliments were a dead giveaway.
“Jade June, how are you?” I smile widely. With petty glee I glance down at the pudge she has put on since high school.
Jade June was the cheerleader and homecoming queen of our class. She was also the meanest girl in our school and from her comment she hasn’t changed. Jade was especially salty to me because she had a huge crush on Archer and hated that he was loyal to me. When she found out we broke up she made a play for Archer the day I was leaving. It didn’t end well for her. From the surly expression she was wearing she still held a grudge.