Page 3 of Easy Reunion
Chapter 1
Kelsey – Present Day
Savannah, Georgia. I feel the familiar churn begin in my stomach that used to happen every time I’d drive to school each day. The idea of facing my classmates after all these years causes my stomach to drop almost as severely as the last altitude bump did.
Jesus, what the hell am I thinking?
I don’t have a single person in the two hundred people I graduated with fifteen years ago I would consider an acquaintance, let alone a friend. My family doesn’t even live here anymore; I have no need to be here. So why am I? To prove I am beyond their taunts, the mental and sometimes physical pain I suffered for four years while I buried my head and pretended to not exist in the cruel, often vicious halls of Forsyth Academy?
The reality is this weekend is nothing more than my chance to finally walk in bolstered by my success, not weighted down by the world as I once knew it.
Through my headphones, I hear the stewardess announce, “Please stow your laptops and other portable storage devices.” Quickly saving the chapter of the newest book I’ve been writing, I slip my Mac into my oversized purse. I snag my phone, making a few notes on the next section of the plot before I toss that aside as well and just stare blankly out at the ground quickly approaching below.
Savannah, the oldest city in Georgia, the birthplace of the Girl Scouts, and the cause of every fear I have to this day when it comes to self-perception.
* * *
“You’re checked in okay?”Nana worries over the phone from her home in North Florida. Ever since I left Georgia the morning after high school graduation, I’ve never been back. My grandparents, who raised me when my parents were killed in an accident in my early teens, never questioned why. They would fly out to see me, or I’d visit them in their retirement community for a visit.
Lord knows that place could keep me well stocked in characters to write about for the next decade.
Smiling, I lean back against the arm of the couch in the suite of the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa I’m relaxing in. “Yes, Nana. I’m fine. I’m going to work out, do some writing, answer some emails from my agent. Then tomorrow, I’m treating myself to a day of pampering at the spa.”
“Good,” she says forcefully, surprising me. “I want you to look stunning the night of that stupid party.”
I snort. “Doubt that’s possible.”
“Do we need to have this talk again, Kelsey? Just because the people at that horrid place hurt you doesn’t mean they define you.”
“I know.” And intellectually, I do. But the scars I wear are both mental as well as physical. And they lacerate my heart and soul.
Nana continues to grumble. “I don’t even know why you’re bothering to give them your time.”
“Ask Angel. Something about walking in with my head high and using a good pair of heels to trample over them as I regain my pride.” My best friend since college has convinced me to do more than a few things that have led me outside my comfort zone over the years. The most recent of which was to sell my small home in the quaint town of Collyer, Connecticut, and move to New Orleans, Louisiana, so I could be closer to her before she gives birth to my niece.
On the day the movers were packing up my boxes, I called her and said, “I must love you if I’m willing to learn to live with having alpaca hair the minute humidity touches it.”
Angel’s response was, “I’m putting some special hair product onto the vanity in the guest bath. You won’t care after the first week anyway. You know you’ve secretly been lusting to move near me for years.”
After which she hung up on me laughing when I asked, “Does your husband know you have these delusions? Maybe he should do something about it before your child comes.”
Angel’s my best friend for more than one reason, the least of which is because she’s never let me get away with any shit from the time she met me in college to now. Which is why I’m even in Savannah.
When I first received the Evite to the reunion, I was going to ignore it like I had when I got it in years five and ten. A conversation with Angel convinced me otherwise. “Walk in there proud of who you are, and tell them all to go to hell, Kels,” she argued. “You rose above what they did to you, even what happened at graduation. Get unstuck from the loop of whatever it is they have you trapped in so you can move on with your life.”
“I’d hardly call my life stuck in a loop,” I drawled, thinking of the crazy whirlwind—especially the last ten years.
“Don’t you want to have the chance to put those feelings all behind you?”
Chewing on a piece of celery, I swallowed and answered, “I thought I had.”
“For the most part, you have. Except one thing,” she reminded me gently, just as I was about to take another bite.
Since I knew how damn dangerous it was to try to eat the stringy food on a good day, I threw it on the plate. “You mean Rierson,” I said flatly.
She nodded before walking around the island to lay her hand on my arm. “There’s still so much hurt inside you, Kels.”
I shook off her arm. “I’m fine.”
