Page 1 of Control Line

Chapter One

The drive to California was taking its toll on Zee. Not because of the twelve hour stretches. She was used to pulling long days. Nor was it the scenery. That was rather pleasant, or would be if she actually saw any of it. Nope, she couldn’t even blame the crappy gas station coffee, questionable snacks posing as meals, or the small Haul-It trailer she towed behind her.

Nu-uh, it’s all me.

She was literally the worst company she—or anyone—could have. That wasn’t a grand revelation, though, just fact.

Everything that Zamantha Kessel owned was packed up behind her. A fresh start was exactly what she needed, but the isolated driving allowed her already taxed mind to work overtime.

It wasn’t self-pity, not anymore. She’d passed thepoor mestage months ago and entered thecomfortably numbphase of grieving.

They say there are five stages of grief: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That’s complete and utter bullshit.

For Zee, grief was very different. They weren’t married or bound financially, so when Billy died, things were handled stateside while she was deployed. There wasn’t a chance to deny it. She was informed, it was a fact, and that was that.

Duty called, and she’d reported every single day as expected. That made the physical isolation part impossible. Emotional isolation, however, had been very much in play, even before he’d died. It had earned her a new call sign, ØK—Zero Kelvin.Yeah, the guys thought they were really funny with that one.

Zee figured she could’ve played theI lost my cheating boyfriendcard, told them why she was so cold, but she didn’t. The last thing she wanted was her unit treating her with kid gloves for any reason. Women already had a rough go of it in the military.

A shudder coursed through her when she remembered every detail of the day her commander informed her that herroommatewas dead.

Yeah, she’d never even told them they were dating or engaged. She’d told herself, and him, it was easier to be one of the guys if she didn’t check any of theI have a uterusboxes. So in the end, everyone thought she’d only lost a roommate, not the man she’d loved once upon a time.

That was the rub. She was grieving for someone who wasn’t real. Pining for what could’ve—should’ve—been, not what was.

Stage two and three weren’t much better, but they weren’t anger or bargaining with a higher power.

Technically, she went through them, but everything was directed inward, not outward. She didn’t blame a God or even Billy for speeding. She blamed herself, which deep down she knew was stupid. It hadn’t stopped months of self-inflicted pain.

The what-ifs haunted her. Maybe if she had gotten out, and they’d moved, he wouldn’t have cheated, wouldn’t have gotten into an accident coming back from his latest girlfriend’s house. That was stupid because he was the one cheating and speeding, not her. It came to light that he’d always been a cheater, but Zee did what she did best when she’d found out. She buried it deep down inside and blamed herself instead of him. Stupid or not, she’d still felt all those things and more.

The third time he’d cheated, he blamed it on her reluctance to even claim him as a boyfriend with her buddies, but things were. . .off about Billy. And it wasn’t just that he’d already cheated on her and thought she didn’t have a clue.

Zee learned to always trust her gut.It didn’t matter if you knew why or could even explain it to yourself. Always, always, always, trust your gut.She’d done just that, and they had never made it official.

But now that he was gone, Zee found it hard to be mad at him and put the blame where it belonged. So instead, she found fault in herself.

Her self-scolding brought her out of her head in time to swerve around some road debris.

“Shit,” Zee repeated as she tried to stop the trailer from fishtailing and taking them into a ditch.Them.

“Hold on, Norman. Everything is under control.” She made the statement before it actually was under control. Norman was a lipoma-riddled guinea pig with chronic overgrown teeth and GI distress.

As soon as she pulled to the shoulder, she turned to check on the hideous thing that was her new pet. Norman was snoozing in his travel cage on a bed of shavings, oblivious to the fact they almost died.

“We almost bought the farm. Well, probably not you, huh? You’re going to outlive Keith Richards if the lady at the shelter is to be believed.”

Norman trained his soulful eyes on her as she stuck two fingers between the wires. When he rubbed against them, she felt a connection.

Okay, rubbed was an oversell, he was likely just checking for treats.Even so, it was something and she was putting it in theI’m not emotionally deadcolumn.

Zee felt a kinship with Norman. No one wanted to touch him because he was so unappealing. She was basically Norman, but her metaphorical lipomas, GI distress, and overgrown teeth were on the inside. No one wanted to touch her, they just didn’t know why.

“I’ll touch you, though.” She gave him a scratch through the cage again. “I’ll always touch you.” Deep down, that’s what Zamantha wanted too; someone to look past her prickly attitude and touch her in spite of it.

Zee turned back forward and cried. Actual tears, gasping sobs, the works. It was proof she wasn’t emotionally dead.

Billy had died months ago and she’d never cried for him. She had loved him in the way she knew how. But things were not as they should’ve been between two people in love with each other. She’d lived in denial for so long, she grieved that way, too.

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