Page 127 of Somewhere You Belong

“You left Carrington Cove at one in the morning?”

“Yup. My company needs me. This is where I’m meant to be, not down there.” My bottom lip trembles again. “Not there.”

Katrina sits on the edge of my desk as my body threatens to break down again, but I’m surprised that I still have tears left to cry. I’ve been having periodic cry fests all night as I drove, stopping along my trip a few times to cry and charge my car so that I didn’t crash or end up alone on the side of the road. If it weren’t the time when normal people would be sleeping, I would have called Shauna, but I didn’t want to wake her if Hudson was resting.

“Turns out you’re just as good an actress as you are a CEO. Who would have thought?”

The words Dallas spoke to me before he left echo in my mind for the thousandth time, along with his texts, but I shove them down and turn my computer on instead. “I just need to work. That will make everything better.”

Katrina stands, wary as she stares at me. “Okay...if you say so. I’ll be right outside if you need anything, all right?”

“I’m fine,” I repeat, mostly to myself, watching her leave before focusing back on my computer, eager to find something to distract myself from the turmoil in my life right now.

Let’s just hope this works.

***

“Willow?” A hand meets my shoulder, startling me awake.

I shoot up from my desk, a paper glued to my cheek by my drool, only to find Katrina standing right at my side.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About two hours.” She pulls the paper from my face and sets it to the side of my desk. “You should go home.”

“I don’t have a home,” I reply, feeling the effects of last night hitting me again.

“You don’t have your apartment here anymore?”

Sighing, I stand from my desk and grab my purse. “No, I do. I just…”

“I don’t know what happened down there, Willow, but it’s nice to have you back.” Katrina smiles politely, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.

“It’s good to be back,” I lie before leaving my office and heading out to my car, driving to some place besides my apartment so I don’t have to be alone again because that’s the last thing I want right now.

***

“Mandy?” I call out as I walk through the front door. The house is quiet, but then the sound of a cupboard shutting in the kitchen has my feet moving in that direction.

“Willow?” Mandy walks around the corner, clutching two cups of coffee. The woman who is the closest thing I have to a mother smiles in greeting, extending a cup that I gladly intercept from her hand. “How are you doing?”

“That is a loaded question,” I reply with a sigh as I follow her to the couch, depositing my purse on the floor before taking a seat in the cushioned chair across from her. My lack of sleep is catching up to me,and even though I really should try to rest, I called her as soon as I left the office. She might be able to help me work through everything I’m feeling because she’s one of the only people in my life who actually knew my parents.

She knows how much their deaths have affected me.

My next call is Shauna, but I need sleep before I talk to her.

Mandy moves her long, light brown hair that’s streaked with grays behind her shoulders and then settles in. “Well, let’s hear all the details then. You didn’t sound like yourself on the phone.”

“Believe me. I don’t feel like myself at all right now.”

Mandy was my mother’s friend from college who ended up being my guardian along with her husband, Jason, when my parent’s died. I was nine when I finally asked why I looked nothing like them, and that was years after they divorced, but that’s when my entire world felt like it truly came crashing down.

Growing up without your parents is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But knowing they chose to put themselves in a dangerous situation that ended up costing them their lives is a detail I still can’t seem to get over, even thirty-two years later, and especially after these past few months.

Two journalists seeking the thrill of televised war, my parents ventured overseas to chase fame and a story, and left me back home with their friends, who ultimately ended up raising me upon their untimely deaths.

Mandy and Jason didn’t tell me all the details right away surrounding how they died. But when I got older, they gave me the brutal truth.

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