Page 2 of Before Forever

Before I knew it, I had signed my name what felt like twenty times in a row. Then, Mr. Jenkins was shaking my hand again, sending me back out into the world with a deed to a lake house tucked in a folder under my arm. I walked like a zombie through the lobby, out onto the sidewalk to flag down a taxi.

The moment the driver took off towards my office, all those waterworks I had been working so hard to hold in came bursting out beyond my control. It was all too much. First, Evan. Then, losing my mom. Now, this? The last thing I needed to deal with was some fixer-upper that was over eight hundred miles away. I didn’t want the reminder that I had neglected to spend time there with her while she was still alive, and I certainly didn’t need to wallow in how nothing turned out the way it was supposed to.

Though it was tempting to think of running away, disappearing in some far away town in the middle of nowhere. Evan was a lying, cheating jerk, and no part of me wanted him back. But when my mom died, all I could think about was how at any minute, he’d come crashing through the doors to offer a shoulder to cry on. He’d be there for me, and maybe he’d even admit how stupid he was for ever hurting me.

But that never happened. Evan sent flowers to the funeral home with a card addressed toallof my mother’s family and friends. That was it.

I shook the humiliating memory away as my office building came into view through the backseat window of the taxi. Sure, I wanted to run away. I wanted to make it up to my mom, even though it was too late. But just as that lake house hadn’t turned out the way she wanted, nothing else in my life had either. Facts were facts, and the sooner I accepted that and moved on…I could start tracking down my life post-Evan and post-Mom. It was here…somewhere. I just had to find it.

All I knew for certain was that no part of that new life involved Silver Point, Tennessee, or expensive taxes on some frivolous vacation home that was too far away. My mind was made up to sell the place by the time I got back to my desk, and the certainty of that felt like enough to help me suck it up and get back to work.

And just in time, too. My boss was marching by my open door, but the moment he caught sight of me in the corner of his eye, he stopped and showed himself in.

“Melody, good. You’re back,” he forced a smile. “How did everything go with the, uh…you know, the…uh….”

“Attorney,” I reminded him. “To review my mother’s Will.”

His expression darkened. “Right. I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

Not expecting my mother to leave me so suddenly, I, of course, had been very liberal in my use of paid time off when everything happened with Evan. Thank god I had my bereavement pay, but while my paychecks and time off were covered…things at work had not been. I was pretty essential to all of our biggest accounts and clients, and all of the absences had made things tense between my boss and me. He worked hard to be understanding, but I could always see his frustrations boiling just below the surface.

Which is why I was quick to suck in a sharp breath and smile. “It was hard, yes, but that was the last thing to check off the list. All of her affairs are in order now,” I lied, leaving out the enormous task of renovating and selling off this lake house. “I am officially back at one-hundred percent and more eager than ever to get things back in order around here.”

He looked impressed and relieved as I reached to answer my phone as if taking a call right at that moment was somehow proof of just how dedicated and refocused I now was. “This is Melody Hart.”

A familiar voice came across the line. “Melody, darling. How are you? Listen, I need a new marketing campaign for Natasha and some of the other fast-risers around here. We need to keep the momentum going while these girls are on fire. Everyone wants them right now. Can we set up a time later this week to discuss?”

My throat tightened, my chest seized, and the hot tears came rushing back faster than I could do anything to stop them. Despite my best efforts to stay strong, I crumbled the moment he saidNatasha. The very model that Evan cheated on me with.

It wasn’t enough that he had fallen for her. Now it was my job to make sure the rest of the world fell for her too.

“Yes, of course,” I croaked. “I’ll send you my schedule, and we’ll set something up. Gotta go!”

The moment the call ended, I erupted into sniffling, shrill sobs. My boss stammered and looked all around him in the hall, hoping someone would come to save him or tell him what to do with his employee who was hysterically crying.

“You should…You should take the afternoon off,” he suggested in obvious discomfort. “Take some time to pull yourself together. This will all still be here in the morning, and you can come back with a strong start.”

All I could do was nod and snatch up as many tissues as I could grab at once to bury my face in as I made a quick escape to the elevator. I wanted to stick to my story and assure him that taking more time off was the last thing I needed to do, but my tears betrayed me, and I was in no position to argue with him.

I felt defeated as I leaned my forehead against the window in the backseat of the cab on the way home. I needed to work to keep my mind off things and restore my boss’s faith in me enough to keep my job. With everything else falling apart, the last thing I needed was to lose that too. And yet everything with Ethan and losing my mom threatened to pull me under and rip away the few things I had left.

Even the place I called home was different now; it morphed into a disheveled studio apartment I hated. It was the first available place I could find to get out of the place Ethan and I shared after I caught him messing around with Natasha. It was filled with boxes I hadn’t bothered to unpack. I had been unpacking when I got the call about my mom, and ever since, it hadn’t felt right to pick the task back up again…to carry on as if that dreadful phone call never came that night.

I made the best of it by utilizing one of the bigger boxes as an entryway table, which I tossed my purse and keys onto each day when I came home. I slid my aching feet out of my heels and kicked them to the side of the big brown cardboard box posing as furniture, then navigated through a maze of even more boxes to grab my phone and order Chinese food delivery for dinner. With my order in, I changed into the most comfortable set of sweats I could find.

My reflection in the mirror caught my eye as I passed. I turned side to side, noting how my luscious curvy body was starting to dwindle from all of the stress. My skin was turning pale and dark circles had permanently formed under my blue eyes.

“At least I still have my hair,” I reassured myself. My long, thick auburn locks had always been one of my best features. I admired them for a moment in the mirror, but my heart sank when I noticed that even that wasn’t holding up the way it used to. I squinted my eyes and leaned in closer to see a white strand of hair hidden near my ear.

Great. Just Great. Now on top of everything, I’m going gray.

It was the final blow of the day…realizing I didn’t recognize myself any more than I recognized the life I was suddenly living.

My job and this city were the only two remnants I had left of my life from before, and I wasn’t about to let Natasha or Ethan’s poor, judgment take those away from me too. Which only made the task of pulling myself together and getting rid of that lake house more urgent.

2

DEREK

---