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PRESENT DAY
Itook a sip of my coffee and stared out the window as the first signs of daylight began to brighten the sky. I had to get ready for work soon, but I was giving myself five minutes for the caffeine to kick in as I enjoyed the quiet.
“Good morning, Chloe,” Savannah’s voice boomed from behind me, and coffee spilled on my fingers as I jumped.
I looked up at the ceiling.Five minutes. That’s all I asked for. Five minutes.
Savannah was a pharmacy technician where I worked at CVS as a pharmacist. She was in her early twenties. When she and her boyfriend had broken up, my heart had gone out to her, and I’d offered her a place to stay.
She was sweet, and I knew exactly what it felt like to break up with a boyfriend. I didn’t want her to worry about where she was going to live while she got back on her feet.
She was only supposed to be at my place for a couple of weeks, a month tops, according to her. She’d been living in my house for almost two months, and she was starting to drive me nuts.
If you looked upextroverton the internet, you’d get a picture of Savannah. She wanted to be with someoneall the time. And she neverstopped talking.
I liked people as much as the next person, but I was an ambivert—a mix between an introvert and an extrovert—and I needed my alone time too. I was tired of going to my room to read or watch TV just so I could be alone.
“Morning, Savannah.” I looked at the clock as I rinsed my hand. “Why are you so cheerful in the morning?”
She grinned and shrugged. “What’s not to be cheerful about?”
“I don’t know. Work, lack of a home, climate change?” I said with little emotion as I didn’t agree with her unwavering happiness.
She laughed. “You’re so funny.”
I refilled my mug and slid it off the counter. “Yeah, that’s me. I’m a fricking riot,” I said dryly. I walked toward my bedroom. “I’m going to shower.”
It wasn’t until after I closed my door and stripped that she yelled, “You might want to wait a few minutes. I took a long shower this morning.”
“Of course you did,” I muttered. I stood in front of my mirror, naked. “I just want my home back,” I whined softly to myself.
My reflection didn’t reply.
Since there was a chance I wasn’t going to get enough warm water to take a full shower, I picked up a hair tie from my counter and put my brunette hair up in a messy bun.
I had stopped bleaching it blonde after I left Darren. He was the one who’d always liked my hair so light. And I liked saving myself the maintenance of keeping up the dye job every six weeks. I actually thought I looked better with my natural color anyway.
With thoughts of my ex, I ran my hand over my tattoo. I thought I was more pissed at him for ruining my first and only tattoo than I was about him cheating on me. Not then, but nearly five years later, I was. Especially since I never got it finished.
After what Liam and I had discovered, our two homes were a whirlwind of realtors, packing, moving, and everyone avoiding everyone else. I hadn’t seen Liam since about a week after it happened. He had moved out right away, and I had gone to live with my parents until I found a new place to live.
I had wanted to get so far away that I moved to the town Hanover, California, so I could totally start over. It was unlikely I’d ever see Liam again, and even though I could go to someone else about extending my tattoo, it just didn’t sit right with me.
I sighed. “That’s life,” I said to myself.
I didn’t know if that thought was in response to never getting my tattoo finished or my earlier problem of wanting my home back. Either way, I was right.
I reached for my coffee to take a big sip before I got in the bathtub for my cold shower, but I missed and knocked my cup to the floor.
Broken ceramic and coffee went everywhere.
“Son of a bitch.”
I yanked a towel from the closet and fanned it out on the floor next to my feet to soak up the coffee before it ruined my woodwork. I carefully got on my hands and knees, so I wouldn’t cut myself.
After absorbing the liquid, I used the wet towel to push the broken pieces of the cup into a pile. I was going to need to get dressed before I went for my broom and dustpan.
I made sure not to step on any slivers of ceramic as I set my feet on the ground and stood.
