2. Serena
CHAPTER 2
Serena
I listen to my son's chatter and ignore the uncomfortable bus seats and the jouncing every time we hit a bump. He keeps talking but only half my mind is focused on him. The rest is focused on the one boy that I ever really loved.
Lucian Marino. Tall, dark, sexy and smoking hot. But I guess you can't really call him a boy anymore.
There's a girl sitting with him and she's got his whiskey-brown eyes and dark hair. She's flopped back in the seat while he talks to her softly. Her arms are crossed over her skinny chest and she's glaring off into space.
I grin to myself.
I remember those days with my own parents. They hated how I acted when I was little like that. I was a brat, there's no doubt. The only time I was ever happy was when I was dancing. Those lessons were the only times I really felt like I belonged. Like the world made sense.
After my parents divorced, Mom and I moved here to Pine Grove. Dad stayed in Seattle and every summer I went to spend a month with him. That and every other Christmas break was all the time he could spare for me. Even that went away when he married the woman who he was seeing when he was married to my mother. She didn't like me and of course I didn't like her. She broke my parents up.
Or that's what I believed at the time. My parents were never really what you'd call happy. They probably should have divorced a long time before that but instead he waited until he found a woman he was willing to cheat with. Not exactly father of the year material there.
But when I moved here I met Lucian Marino and everything changed. My mom was working as a secretary for the school district in one of the grade schools and she was happier than I'd ever seen her.
And I had Lucian. My best friend. The boy who showed me the way to my class my first day of school, holding my hand while I breathlessly followed him, my heart twitching to life in my chest.
We were best friends until senior year and then…we were something more. We fell in love and I gave myself completely to the boy who was everything to me. He was my first in so many ways.
Six months later we graduated and he told me that he needed some space to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He told me to take the scholarship to the dance school that wanted me and keep in touch.
Keep in touch!
I can't even believe he said that to me today. What the hell? We were everything to each other and then he told me to leave and keep in touch?!
So I did the only thing I could and I left, dragging my broken heart with me.
That was the last time I spoke to him. I took a bus out of town and I swear I saw him standing, leaning against a tree, his broad shoulders drooping.
I stood up trying to see him but he was out of sight in seconds and I still don't know if it was him. Tears streamed down my face for miles after that. Until I fell asleep, exhausted. Until I reached New York and buried myself in all the work it took to be a successful dancer.
Years of studying and I went on tour with the ballet company. I made prima ballerina after two years with the company.
And then I met Giorgio. My husband and the man I currently hate more than even my father or Lucian.
Gorgeous Giorgio, the gorgeous dancer with the smoldering sapphire eyes and dark hair that fell into his eyes like a little boy. I thought I loved him but after a year when I got pregnant and couldn't dance anymore it was like I didn't exist anymore for him. I went from his Corazon to some forgotten woman at home eating dinner by herself and checking the time until she finally puts the dinner in the fridge and goes to bed on her own.
We stuck it out until Seth was eight and then I came home early from an appointment and found Giorgio's car in the driveway and a strange woman from the company in my bed.
He didn't even try and deny it. That was the end of our marriage and I kicked myself every damn day for not realizing that he was just like my father.
He married her the day our divorce was finalized and didn't even care about seeing his son.
Selfish prick!
But thank heaven I'm well out of that mess and he had to pay up because he cheated. I could have been proud and not taken any money from him but too damn bad. He owed me something for all those years alone. For all the years he was probably dragging girls home to my bed, our bed.
"Hey Mom! Look at that!" My boy excitedly points out the window and I smile as the fairgrounds come into view.
"Yep! Look at that!"
The buses stop and we pour out into the steamy-hot parking lot. The kids automatically line up in uneven lines and the teachers count off names and then smile, turning them loose.
I hold Seth's hand and can't help but grin at the huge smile on his face. "Look at that, Mom! They have cows here!"
"They sure do! And pigs and all kinds of animals. Just don't touch anything. They are animals and they don't know who you are."
He nods excitedly and I let go of his hand slowly. He's ten and I can't hold onto him forever, no matter how much I want to.
My chest goes heavy and my throat tightens when he races away excitedly.
Almost immediately he finds the girl who was sitting with Lucian and his jaw drops. She glares at him and I see her saying something to him that I have to figure is not going to be super-nice. But he just throws back his blond head and laughs at her. Then he reaches out and takes her hand and she stares at him.
And I see that same scene playing out in my head. Only it's Lucian and me. I close my eyes and swallow roughly, the pain still raw and ragged. After all these years I still can't forget him.
"Can I talk to you, Serena?"
I open my eyes and he's standing in front of me, his big hands shoved into his jeans pockets. His warm brown eyes are soft and nervous, matching my own feelings. Scary and intense. It's like we're still back where we were so long ago.
But we're not and we never will be. There's been too much time and pain between us.
But I stand tall and nod at him. His chin dips towards a bench over to the side and I follow him, willing myself to keep control of all those strange feelings and just listen to him and leave.
That's all that I can give him. I don't have anything left for more.