Page 41 of Beneath the Stars (Sugarlake 1)

It doesn’t get any easier as I leave my session and stop at the store. I’m standing in an aisle filled with pads and loose-leaf paper, feeling like a dumbass as I stare at the different options. Doc’s “homework” was to get a notebook and start journaling.

Fucking journaling.

I scoffed at the idea. I told him I was a twenty-two-year-old man, not a thirteen-year-old girl. But he assured me I would be surprised. Said it would help me work through things I couldn’t voice. I’m not convinced. But here I am anyway, picking out a damn diary.

I take my time perusing, finding one that really speaks to me. If I’m going to slice open my insides and bleed out on the pages, I might as well do it in a book that I don’t hate looking at.

Every few weeks, Sam and Anna drive up. While it’s mainly to see me, we usually just grab dinner before they venture out to explore the city. Tonight though, it’s only Sam.

“How have things been at Jackson & Co.?” He shakes the rocks glass in his hand, the ice clinking against the sides as the liquid sloshes.

Here we go.

I knew his excuse of “father-son bonding” was really something else. He’s dying to have me come back home and help him run Sugarlake Construction. No chance in hell.

“Things are great. Busy.”

I’ve been with Jackson & Co. Construction since freshman year. When I graduated with a degree in Architectural Engineering, specializing in Construction Management, Sam thought I’d resign from my position and run back home. Just like we’d always planned. But the map of my life changed course the second I lost Goldi.

He nods his head. “Good, good. Listen, I’ve been thinking. I know you’re apprehensive about coming home.”

I chuckle, sipping from my IPA. Apprehensive isn’t the word I’d use.

“But I really think it could be good for you. I’m planning to do a major overhaul, expand into neighboring towns. I need you home for that, Chase. Let’s build a legacy. Together.”

Fuck. He really knows how to make it hard on a guy.

I set down my beer and sit forward, my elbows resting on the table. “Look, the last thing I want is to disappoint you. And if I thought Sugarlake was the place for me, please believe I’d be there in a second. But it’s not. I’ve made a life here.”

He leans back in his chair, sighing. “Are you happy, son?”

“I’m working on it.”

I watch the hope fade from his eyes, the familiar sting of being a let-down prodding at my back. I owe Sam for everything good in my life. I wish I could be the son he wants me to be. But I can’t.

There’s nothing left for me in Sugarlake. Not anymore.

Journal Entry #1

This is fucking stupid.

18

Alina

Twenty-One Years Old

If you had asked me when I was eleven where I’d be at twenty-one, I’d tell you dancing on Broadway, and still the apple of my daddy’s eye. If you had asked me when I was sixteen, I’d say a college graduate, teaching dance in my spare time, with Chase at my side. At eighteen, I’d have been positive I’d be an instructor at the premiere dance studio in Chattanooga. Planning the wedding of my dreams to the boy who’s always owned my soul.

But life likes to throw curveballs. The changeup so extreme it spins you around and knocks you off home plate.

I reminisce on the notions of that young, naive, stupid girl. Wondering what she’d think of the way her life turned out. I’m still living at home, taking care of the only parent I have left. One who can’t stand the sight of me because I’m the spitting image of my mama.

My weeks are filled with teaching dance at the rec hall and waitressing down at Patty’s Diner on Main Street to make ends meet. Someone has to make sure the lights stay on around here. If it were up to Daddy, we’d be destitute by now.

There are moments. Glimpses of the strong man who raised me. The man who told me I could do anything. Be anything. But those moments are stretched few and far between. Lost in a sea of amber liquid and glass bottles.

It has a name, this affliction of his. But I never speak it out loud. If I do, I’ll have to face the truth that another person in my life has failed to live up to my expectations. One more time I’ve been left on the outside looking in. They’re all too lost in their personal demons to care about mine.

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