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“Goodbye, Miss Jones,” he dismisses me with a flick of his wrist.
I turn around, seething at his rudeness, and stomp out the door, unwilling to be in his presence any longer, no matter how hot he is. I’m still fuming when I get to the bus station and retrieve my suitcases, ignoring the same security guard from before, still watching my every move.
It’s only when I settle in the way over my budget hotel room I relax enough to see the positive in the situation. At least I don’t have to work for the asshole. And surely there are other jobs in Blackwood. This place is big enough that I’ll probably never see him again. Although, just in case, I should make a pact with myself to avoid that part of town.
That night, when I go to bed, I make a plan of action. The first thing on the agenda is to find a job. The second is to make my stupid eidetic memory forget the man who had me so riled up today.
It shouldn’t be too hard.
But my brain is a beast of its own. And as I fall asleep, it keeps bringing up images of angry chocolate brown eyes, and full lips lifting into a sexy smirk.
2
ALESSA
Idon’t know why it took me years to start searching for the truth. Lack of courage, maybe? Or maybe it’s because I didn’t want to find out I simply wasn’t wanted.
I’ve struggled to fit in all my life, so finding out it’s been like that since birth shouldn’t really make that much of a difference. Except it wasn’t since birth. For the first three years of my life, someone must have loved me. Or at least like me enough to take care of me. Because shortly after my third birthday, something changed.
My very first memory is waking up on a porch swing, a black bomber jacket over my body as I tried to make out where I was and why there was no one else with me. I remember feeling sad and scared, holding onto the material like it was my lifeline. I think I was waiting for someone to come back, so certain the owner of the jacket would be back at any moment, except no one ever showed up.
Well, the cops did.
Once a well-meaning neighbour called them, worried about a small child sitting in front of an empty house some lady died in a month before.
It’s been foster home after foster home from that point on. Turns out not every three-year-old girl gets adopted. And the older I got, the more attention I started receiving.
Unwanted attention. Not the kind that gets you a happy family.
I was thirteen when the eighteen-year-old son of my then-foster parents came into my room and raped me for the first time. I ran away the next week when my foster parents tried to punish me for stabbing him with scissors, not believing I was just trying to defend myself, and never looked back.
Since then, I have been too busy staying alive to even think about my past. Survival was my goal, and trying to figure out who the owner of the black jacket was became second place to finding food and shelter for the night. The jacket stayed stashed away at the bottom of my backpack and at the back of my mind.
I’d take it out now and then, breathe in its scent, imagining the notes I smelled the first time I had it wrapped around me, the warm and rich woodsy scent wrapped in a citrusy undertone. As the smell faded over the years, so did my childish belief that the owner of the jacket would come back for me one day. I almost threw it out at least a dozen times, but could never quite get myself to follow through. It wasn’t until I put it on a few months ago that I foundit.
Instead of chucking the jacket, I decided to make use of it and put it on for once. Even after all these years, it felt huge on me. But unlike the first time, I wasn’t drowning in it. I could make it work, make it look cool, except something was weighing it down. You can imagine my surprise when I ran my fingers over the soft material and found a small round object stuck between the material next to a breast pocket with a hole in it. After all the years of looking at it, the jacket delivered what I hoped was a clue to my past.
A small round pocket watch with intricate designs on the front and one word engraved on the inside.
Blackwood.
After the initial shock, I hid the pocket watch away, unsure if looking for answers was what I wanted. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to finally put on my big girl pants and google the one word that felt equally foreign yet familiar on my lips.
The minute I came across the isolated town, I had a gut feeling. For some reason, it never felt like it belonged to a person. But a town? One hidden away from the rest of the world? It just felt right.
So, on a spur of the moment, I packed all my belongings into my car and took the nine-hour journey north, hoping I’d find some answershere.
Except if I didn’t find a job quickly, I’d be out on my ass and living that gas station life again.
“Do you have a printer I can use?” I ask the bored-looking receptionist at the hotel’s help desk. You’d think with how much they charge for a room, their staff would be more approachable.
She blows a bubble with her gum into a big balloon until it pops as she looks me up and down. “No.” Her tone is bored, too.
Jesus Christ, is this town full of assholes?
“Do you know where I could find a printer I’d be able to use?” I try again.
With a heavy sigh, she gets up from the chair she’s been sitting in and walks around the counter to me.
