Prologue
“The plane will be landing in approximately twenty minutes time.” The pilot’s voice reverberated throughout the airplane’s speakers.
In twenty minutes…my life will change.There will be no going back. For the past year and a half, I had prepared myself for this very moment…but somehow the bravado I had before getting on the plane seemed nonexistent now that I was going to face him. Drew Cavendish hounded my dreams for as long as I could remember. Maybe it was the way he had exited my life…by making me fervently feel like I was on a tailspin and he alone could halt everything it to nothingness and into a beautiful oblivion. Into a paradise that he alone could weave through his melodic spells of words and the euphoria of his touch…but most of all, it was the way he looked at me that night, as if he could devour me whole, as if I was the only woman he saw—the only one he wanted. Those blue eyes saw everything I dared to hide—he took me in—took it all—and I was left by sullied memories that meant to be forgotten.
But forgetting him wasn’t a possibility. Instead, I lived every single day after that fated night trying to figure out myself. I meandered through accepting that it was no one’s fault, that some things happen in life without needing to shred the meaning of every single moment…because it meant to happen just the way it did…a token to be treasured but nothing more. There was no need for me to hate him because he simply didn’t care trying to mend friendships. And so I learned to live with such mentality.
My parents didn’t give me any options to do anywhere else to study because I was simply ought to follow their rules—and their rules demanded that I go to school of my brother’s choosing, NYU. So this is where I was headed. Bounded by a feeble excuse that they wouldn’t provide for my tuition, rent and all the expenses if I had the audacity to study elsewhere. My down rotten fate wasn’t all that bad because even though I loathed the thought that I would be sharing an apartment with my brother and Drew (who just happened to be my brother’s best friend), I loved being around my big brother. So, I suppose, it was a great compensation. One must always look at the positive aspects of life. I had wallowed long enough.
Drew wouldn’t alter anything for me this time. I wasn’t the besotted girl that would jump at every given opportunity be around thy holy self. That girl had since become a woman—one who was bent not being a fool twice.