Page 5 of A Chance Love

One picture in particular stood out. She was a small child wearing something her mother picked out, which meant it was gaudy. A leopard print onesie with bright colored pants and white shoes. She stood in front of a large cabin, in a pile of leaves under a tree in the front yard.

It was an old house back then, which meant now it was absolutely ancient. It wasn’t perfect, but everything up at the house was perfect to April. She looked back on the memories fondly, thinking about her parents more than she usually did. In an effort to be grateful, she thanked her parents in her head for taking her there.

Technically she still owned it because her father left the house to her. But it’d been so long since she’d actually been there. They’d talked about bringing Georgia to stay each summer. Carl even promised to plan a trip to the house one summer in particular but he never did. She couldn’t blame him. She was so busy that even a vacation sounded like a chore because of how much work she would need to catch up on when they came back.

It’d been so long that but for the usual paperwork for taxes on the property, April wouldn’t have remembered she owned the place.

Now that she thought about it, she would love to be there. The wine made her think of things as better than they were. And she loved that house while sober.

In this state, April pretended like she was there already. She would rake all the leaves in the front yard and sit on the deck reading a good book. It was like she was really there. Relaxation would overcome her as she listened to the trees wave in the wind. The island always felt like home, but now it felt like the trip away from home she always dreamed of.

Yes, this was what she really wanted to do. She opened her phone and began typing away on the keyboard.Hey, Maxwell, I regret to inform you that I’m quitting, effective immediately.Or at least, that’s what she thought she’d typed out.

Before she hit send, she wondered if this would become something she would regret in the morning. But then she smacked that send button and knew she wouldn’t be able to take it back.

Without hesitation, now that the biggest hurdle was crossed, she browsed online to find a plane ticket out of there. She needed more than some new hobby; she needed to physically escape this place that had kept her captive for so long.

For a moment, April got distracted by the photos on the travel site she visited for her ticket. They showed beautiful mountain ranges, fast moving cities, and beaches that stretched out for miles. Maybe some people wanted that, but April wanted to go to that island, to her cabin.

And though the photos had stumped her for a second, she ultimately followed through with her plan to book the tickets to her cabin. Everything was falling into place. April was proud of her work to get out of this situation. Yes, this was the only option that made sense to her.

After finishing her glass of wine, because April never wasted wine, she made her way upstairs to the bedroom. She looked over all their belongings with bitterness in her heart. “I’ll show you,” she said aloud.

In the closet, there sat a large black suitcase. It was enough for about half of her wardrobe, which she would need if she left the house for a week or maybe two, and that was pushing it. She debated pulling everything out of her dresser and off the hangers, but decided to at least try to keep it organized.

Messily, she pulled everything she wanted out and tried to fold it nicely. Her suitcase was full in twenty minutes, with clothes and no toiletries or necessary electronics. April looked at her work and felt proud of all that she’d done.

She’d basically planned an entire trip for herself on a whim. She quit her job, booked a ticket, and even started packing. Morning April was going to be quite pleased with what she’d accomplished here tonight.

The empty wine glass sat on the nightstand as April lay down. Before she drifted off to sleep, April thought about her childhood at the cabin. Which floorboards creaked when you stepped on them, how the trees smelled right after a good rain, the feeling of sand between her toes.

Her memories collided with her dreams. April was going to do everything she ever dreamed of.

At least that’s what she thought. A jobless, lost, regret-filled woman was going to head back to her childhood cabin. What could possibly go wrong?

CHAPTER FOUR

When April awoke the next morning, things were not quite what she remembered. The first thing she noticed was that she was lying in the same clothes she’d put on yesterday morning. The next thing she noticed was that her head hurt and her stomach felt like an empty pit of acid.

The phone on her nightstand buzzed repeatedly. That’s when she remembered the text she’d sent the night prior. She opened the messages and found that her message wasn’t quite what she remembered either. “Hey Max. I regert to inform u that I’m quitting egfect immediately.”

Not only was it not as professional as she remembered, but the spelling error was something she would never do. It explained the twenty missed calls she had from her boss, Maxwell.

That’s when it hit her. She’d quit her job, booked a ticket, and planned to get out of town for a while. Why would she do that? Her whole life was here. Her job paid her well and she’d worked so hard to get where she was now. The phone rang again, Maxwell on the other end of the line.

She knew that he wouldn’t be happy, but she answered it anyway. “Hello?”

“ April! Thank God. I don’t know what happened to you last night, but you better have been joking. Tell me you were joking.”

She stuttered, struggling to make a decision. “Uh… Well…”

“Uh, well, what? You’re coming into the office today at your normal time and getting this work done. And if you don’t, I swear, April, I will make sure…”

Maybe it was the tone Maxwell had decided to use that day. Or maybe it was just because she’d been wanting to do this for so long it felt wrong to back out of it now. “You’re never going to talk to me like that again,” she said calmly into the phone. “I said I quit and I meant it.”

She could hear him beginning to rev up, ready to let loose on her. So with a smile, she hung up the phone. It wasn’t worth it to keep listening to what he had to say. She’d decided to quit and she was going to stick to it.

April stood and looked at the suitcase she thought she’d packed so nicely last night. It had only four work shirts, two dresses, and a pair of dress shoes. There were no pants or shorts, not a single pair of underwear, and no socks. To add to the mess, tons of clothes were piled up that didn’t make it into the suitcase.

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