I returned our home while he toured with her novel Chapter 44

Chapter 11

Five years. Mom and Dad had aged.

At the airport, Mom grabbed me and cried.

“My sweetheart. What did they do to you?”

I tried to hide the scars. She saw anyway.

Dad was steady. “You’re home. That’s what matters.”

Alex told me later: Dad went home and destroyed two punching bags.

They brought me to my room.

Nothing had changed. Five years, exactly the same.

“They came in every day. Just to look.”

My eyes burned.

Sunlight hit my old vanity. Half-used mascara still sitting there.

For a second, I was back.

Before Jon. Before Ashland.

Just me, in Sunnydale, fresh out of college. Mom and Dad close by. Every day simple.

I cried in the sun.

Mom held me. “It’s over. It’s over. We didn’t protect you. We’re sorry.”

“But you’re home now. We’re here. Always.”

I looked at her, tears everywhere. “I’m sorry.”

They got me a therapist. Checked my head.

I was fine.

I saw old friends. People I’d lost touch with when I moved.

We said goodbye at sunset. Alex was waiting with flowers.

Wind in my hair. Sun going down.

I thought: I’m alive again.

Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

A month later, we all went back to Ashland. For the divorce.

Mom shivered in the cold. Looked at me with new eyes.

“You hate cold weather. Always have. How did you survive here?”

I smiled. No answer.

Alex had people watching Jon.

The Hartwells were nothing now. Barely hanging on.

Jon showed up on time at the courthouse.

Thin. Pale. Guards behind him.

Tiffany came too. Belly showing. But the spark was gone, eyes red, swollen.

Guess she realized she’d picked the wrong horse.

Jon stared at me.

Longing. Missing me.

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