AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With my back turned to him and my sights on my car ahead, I allowed the tears to flow. I allowed myself to break free without anyone else’s eyes on me.
I slammed the door to my Volvo shut and roared the engine to life. The tears continued to fall silently down my face, and I allowed myself to shatter in the silence.
All those hopes and dreams came crashing down in seconds—the life I had built in my head. The palaces of his words and promises had painted what I thought nothing but honesty. None of it was real. It had never been confirmed, and I had been a fool to believe that happy endings came for people like me.
Three weeks later…
“You look like shit, babe,” Selena, or Lena, as I called her as well, my best friend, said.
She wasn’t looking at me directly, however. She was more focused on getting her winged eyeliner right in the mirror.
“I am going through heartbreak. Sue me,” I said with a mouth full of Hot Cheetos. I didn’t even love Hot Cheetos, but these were the last things in my kitchen. I hadn’t left the house in three weeks. Was I hiding from the judgmental society of Braven Bay? Yes, I was not ashamed to say that.
Braven Bay was such a tight-knit community. Everyone knew everyone. We were all in each other's business, meaning everyone likely had already heard about my breakup with Jake.
In high school, we were voted the couple likely to get married and settle in Braven Bay. Well, that aged well.
“Are you listening to me?” Selena peered at me with her full-done face. The blue eye shadow brought out the green in her eyes.
“Where are you going?”
“A date,” she smiled. “I haven’t gotten laid in a while, and I think it’s time the streets of Chicago remember who I am.” She shot me a wicked smirk and a wink before she disappeared out of view of the screen.
I had always been so jealous of her. She left Braven Bay after high school, moved to Chicago, and never looked back. Selena was the kind of person who followed the wind in any given direction it blew. She was carefree and lived without caution.
Looking at her, you would never guess she was a paralegal. She lived life like she was dying the next day.
“Who’s the guy?” I finally asked, digging into my bag of Cheetos and finding it empty.
Shoot.
“This Italian restaurant owner is named Davide. You should see his arms,” she came back into view of the screen with her boobs out and the bathroom towel discarded. “I swear that man is what you would call the Italian stallion.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice to know one of us is getting laid tonight. I wish I had your life. Living it up in a big city without the prying eyeballs of Mama Gertrude and Sydney. Just being you.”
“Then why don’t you move out to Chicago and come live that life? It’ll be ‘Lena and Lia take Chicago’”
I laughed, thinking she was making a joke, but my laughter quickly died when I saw that she was serious. “You’re serious?”
She stepped into the red showstopper dress before giving me her full attention. “Why not? You’ve been stuck in Braven Bay all your life, Amelia. Don’t you ever wonder what is out there for you? Your entire life has been planned around Jacob, and now that he is out of the picture, you can finally make your life about you. Don’t you want to know what the world offers you?”
“I…” venturing beyond Braven Bay had never been a thought for me.
“Don’t you want to live for yourself finally? What is left for you in Braven Bay?”
She was right. What was left for me in Braven Bay?
Old memories. And a town full of gossip. People who would only look at me with pity. My mother died when I was six, and my father passed away two years ago. The only person who had kept me here was Jake, and now that he was gone, what was stopping me from just packing up and leaving?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
2
AMELIA
I stared out the window at the city before me. Large concrete buildings stood before me. I could hear the distant sound of sirens in the background.
Chicago was loud and busy, and everyone was on their track.
