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For The Win (A novella)
Urban Fantasy
The Akrhyn Series
Into Darkness (The Akrhyn Series Book 1)
Lost in Darkness (The Akrhyn Series Book 2 )
From the Darkness (The Akrhyn Series Book 3)
An Alpha’s Duty (An Akrhyn Series novella)
Watcher Series
A Glow of Stars & Dusk (Book 1)
A Flame of Stars & Midnight (Book 2)
A Blaze of Stars & Dawn (Book 3)
ALWAYS AND FOREVER BY S. RAMIREZ
A SHORT STORY
Iwas only thirty years old. THIRTY and although technically speaking, I was still young, but it didn’t feel like it. There was so much I had gone through already, but I felt like I was running out of time. My therapist’s favorite question was always, “what makes you feel that way?” or another version of it, “why do you think that is?” and both questions were never easy to answer. She’d taught me to question the way I felt in the dark moments, just like I was in now.
“What makes you feel that way?” I asked my reflection on the microwave as it goes off and startles me a bit out of the daze I was in. There’s no one in the office but me, so no one can hear me talking to myself. Everyone does it sometimes right?
I take my food out and head back to my desk. Today I had a lot of paperwork to get done since I had three closings coming up. Being a realtor was what kept me busy; going. It gave me little time to sit with my thoughts. It was good for me, even if everyone thought I was a workaholic, but I’d just laugh and say, “it could be worse.” That part was the truth, though they’d laugh too because they didn’t know.
The only reason I was taking a break was that Brenda had sent me a screenshot ofThem…together on vacation somewhere tropical and showing off their engagement. I had asked her not to send me pictures, but it never stopped her from doing it, and it didn’t stop me from looking either. I wasn’t even mad anymore, just sad and tired of seeing them live the life I longed for. Taking a deep breath, I picked up my fork and started eating the chicken and roasted veggies I made for dinner last night. Trying to avoid the anxiety and heartbreak from swallowing me whole.
“What makes you feel this way?” I didn’t ask it out loud this time, but I went back to the question and again went over all the reasons why it was still hard. Three years of a rollercoaster later, and it wasn’t any easier. The fact that someone I thought was my friend was with the man I was supposed to be with, that I still cared about. Just like going down on a rollercoaster ride, I felt that familiar pit in my stomach.
It took over a year of therapy sessions to get to the point where I had to admit to myself that Istillcared. My therapist knew from the beginning, but she never said it; she didn’t make me admit it either until I was ready. I remember that session all too well too
“So what?” I wasn’t even talking to her at that point. It had been the day that I found out they were dating, and I felt my blood boil. She asked why I was so upset about it that I called her for an appointment the next day, and I couldn’t lie.
“I still love him.” It wasn’t the whole truth. There was more to it, and a part of me felt like she knew somehow, but she never asked, and I didn’t talk about it.
She would say, “but why did you leave him if you loved him?” Now that one was tricky because I couldn’t answer. She wasn’t even writing in her journal or typing on her laptop. She’d just talk to me, and knew the right questions to ask.
I shook my head trying not to think about it now. I was past that.
Was I?
The picture of them at a waterfall was still staring back at me on my desk.
“Damn.” I sat my half-eaten lunch on my desk and got rid of the picture. I had to let it go. My heart wasn’t healed, and I didn’t know when it would be, but I had to let it go. At least that’s what I had to keep telling myself.
The door opened as I was going back to work.
“Back so soon?” I smiled up at Savannah and JJ, two of the best realtors in town and my best friends since college.
They both smiled back at me. Savannah was tall; her skin was the most perfect skin I’d ever seen. She’d say her Puerto Rican genes mixed with her African genes was what made her awesome. JJ was about my height, but on the leaner side, she did cross-fit like crazy. She was also the most fun person I knew and that’s because she loved to be adventurous. We went through hell as college kids getting our shit together, but after we realized we could help each other; we grew to be close, and now we’re like sisters. Ever since then, we’ve been the three musketeers. It’s kinda funny how everything worked out; I met Savannah first one year after starting college; I was in the dorms at first but hated my roommate, and it was just an awful first year as a freshman. Then I became Savannah’s tour guide and she offered me a place to stay because her parents had a house nearby that they had owned before moving away and let her stay in, which is how we became roommates and then JJ came along. She was a year older than us and had transferred from Florida. She was our bartender at a club we went to regularly and helped us with a situation with some men that were harassing us, so the rest was history after that. My girls were everything to me; they knew all the shit I went through with my last relationship and I knew all their struggles too.
“That’s the thing about being a broker; you’re always on the clock girl.” Savannah said as she sat down on her desk across from me. She got her license a year before we did and then a year after, she got her broker license and we’ve been working together ever since. All three of us went to school for business, but then we realized we wanted to invest in real estate, and we got tired of working to pay our student loans that it didn’t seem we would ever be out of student debt. So we had a small office in a sky rise building in the center of L.A. It was a great area since that’s how we paid off our student debt and credit cards and how we all got our own places.
