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One.
New Essex, 6600 inhabitants. This was it. She had arrived, finally!
Driving for almost five days from New Jersey to get to this town had been a challenge, but she succeeded. It had been a fucking hell, but it was over now.
Good for you, Dakota! You did it! You pushed yourself through fear and uncertainty and you accomplished your goal. Or the first of them. She had a list, but it started with arriving here.
She drove calmly to enter the town and gazed around with a big smile. This seemed to be a beautiful place, indeed. Like a postcard, hills and woods surrounded the town. The colors of nature were astonishing: rich browns, deep greens, creamy yellows, soft reds, and brilliant whites.
She rolled the window and breathed, and the cool air filled her lungs. Fresh, unpolluted, invigorating. The smell of pines and wood was everywhere, a subtle reminder she wasn’t in the big city anymore.
This had to be the main street. There were several stores with American flags flashing, men in hats and boots, and women flashing their floral dresses. Like a western movie set.
Except this was the real thing, of course. There were a lot of ranches in the area, and cattle breeding was the primary activity. She knew this when googling the name of the town.
Dakota did a lot of research on the web since she found she had a lost grandma who owned a farm in this exact place. Four months had passed since she was aware she had a mystery relative.
The old letter she found in her mother’s attic had saved her from despair and sadness. Dakota lived alone in a big house she had inherited from her mum. She had died two years ago from a heart attack.
So unexpectedly! She was alone for the first time. Well, except for Sebastian. Her mother never told her about other relatives or a different life.
They had always been the two of them. Dakota was heartbroken and lost when she died. She could only gather her mum’s belongings in boxes and hid them in the attic.
The night she knew her fiancé cheated on her with her best friend, she had had a nervous wreck, and she hid in the said attic to cry, drink and shout till her throat was a wreck.
Sebastian, the fucker, had been her first love, her friend, her rock! Or so she thought. And Sally, her bestie! Ex-bestie now, of course. Both lying rats laughed at her.
Deep down she had known, she realized after grieving for hours. She had ignored all the red flags. The way he covered his phone when reading the messages, how they looked at each other, how she was always in the middle, like a third wheel that Sebastian accepted,
Dakota found out the ugly truth by pure chance. On Sebastian's birthday, she wanted to do something special for him. The surprised one was her when she walked into both of them, sleeping together in his bed.
Dakota was wordless, and she felt as if a knife had stabbed her right in her heart. She didn’t face them. Instead, she let them sleep while she swallowed her feelings and left.
But they knew. She had left the gift on a chair next to Sally’s panties. She blocked them both, and to be fair, they didn’t explain themselves or said they were sorry. Dakota imagined they were relieved they didn’t have to face her. Cowards!
A coffee shop, right there. She needed her caffeine shot in a vein, so she stopped herself from bringing back the past, and parked the car. She walked to the place and waved back at the people who smiled at her or saluted with a hand in their hats. People were friendly and polite here.
She was used to walking around in a hurry, always with a goal in mind, ignoring the rest of the world, but this wasn’t the way people were in small towns. She had read some blogs, of course. She was a control freak who needed to know in advance what was going to happen and how she had to behave.
This was so far beyond her usual way of doing things. This… This spontaneous journey to meet a woman who claimed to be his father’s mum was the most uncertain thing she had done in… Ever.
Her ex-fiancé was right; she was a boring person.No, not at all. He’s the asshole, cheating bastard, her mind told her.You’re doing the right thing. It’s family.
She entered the coffee shop and gazed around, and then walked to a table next to a window. It was a cozy place, spotless, and the curtains and tablecloths were bright and clean.
A blond middle-aged woman smiled at her from the counter.
“I will be right there, honey. Coffee?”.
“That would be great, thanks.”
She saw the woman delivering baked goods from a tray to an exhibitor. They looked yummy, and her stomach grumbled.
“And one of those, please.”
The woman nodded and put one cupcake on a plate, and they brought it to Dakota and poured her a cup of steamy coffee.
“These chocolate and orange cupcakes are to die for. I’m Marge, honey. Can I get you something else?”
