Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Once the bus came to a stop, I dreaded having to get up and make my way down the long aisle. I had gotten used to the old gray seats. It was disturbingly sad to say they were almost comforting. My life was in ruins now. I could drown my sorrows in alcohol, trying to dull the pain, but I wasn’t like her .After all, I had survived much worse. When the bus driver gave the last call to get off, I hesitated to look out the window because I knew what was waiting for me outside the safe confinement of the bus.

Nothing.

Okay, that was a lie. Outside the windows was a reality I didn’t think I’d have to face again. Outside the windows was a place I once called home. Sunny Pines, where it wasn’t always sunny. Where pine and other trees were abundant, making the town a lush wonderland in the spring and a sea of leaves in the fall. A place where dreams were born but died if you didn’t get out. Where I now came crawling back, swallowing a mountain of pride. I had big dreams, but sometimes big dreams end in a bigger disaster, so here I am at eleven at night sneaking into the place that stopped being home long ago. Taking a deep breath, I get up, grab my luggage, and make it out to the dark bus stop.

No car.

No man.

No dream.

I had it all. I was living the dream, but then it ended. Now I faced the harsh truth that my dream was nothing but a glamour, just the facade that was my life in San Francisco. I’d been working as a personal stylist for a small, but high-class, boutique for the last few years. I, the girl who was all about jeans and tank tops, was now a trendsetter. I loved the fact I got a discount on the latest fashions, my closet was fabulous, and I got a say on what merchandise to stock up on.

What I didn’t know at the time was that my fabulous closet was being used by the women who my boyfriend brought back to our place. I was just the main chick while he was parading around town with his harem. I know, silly of me to think we were exclusive simply because we lived together, shared the responsibilities of our house, and he had bought me a ring. I didn’t know what hurt the most, the factthat Ashton cheated on me repeatedly or that Victor, our driver whom I adored, didn’t give me a heads-up.

Then again, he would always say, “You’re too good for this place, Miss Freya.” Or “You are one of the most amazing women I have ever met.” Let’s not forget when he called me mi ni?a . “ Mi ni?a, you deserve only good things.” Guess that was his way of warning me that my boyfriend of three years was cheating on me. If he would have said something along the lines of “Your boyfriend is dipping his toes in every pond in the city,” I would have gotten the memo much sooner. I’d still be living my glamorous life if I hadn’t gotten off work early and Victor had answered my calls. Instead, I took an Uber home to find my boyfriend balls deep in his secretary. On our couch.

A couch where I used to sit with a glass of chardonnay and relax.

A couch where we used to cuddle and watch movies on Sundays.

I mean, really, how cliché could Ash be? The heir to the Hill’s luxury hotels fucking his fresh-out-of-college sexy assistant right under my nose. And just like that, everything came crashing down.

On the bus ride, I had too much time to think things over, and a lot of it I didn’t like. All that pride and sense of accomplishment I used to feel every morning waking up wrapped in merino disappeared. I felt ashamed. I felt guilty. I felt undeserving.

I left home when I was eighteen, a young girl with one goal—not letting myself care about the mess I was leaving behind. I didn’t stop to think about my grandpa and the fact I was leaving him alone, and I certainlydidn’t let myself think about the boy whose heart would break when he didn’t find me the next morning. I left with nothing but two goodbye notes. One to a boy who loved me, and the other to the only father figure I had. I was all my grandfather had left.

My mother was a good woman at some pointin her life, at least that’s what my grandpa says. She used to be loving and caring, and she had a dream too. She dreamed of leaving her hometown and living large with the boy she loved. Well, that boy went on to live the dream without her, leaving her pregnant and alone. My mom didn’t cope well. She drank and tried to find love in all the wrong places. She loved the bottle more than she did me and drowned not only in alcohol but in water when she drove her beat-up car across the bridge and into the stream. Our town was small, but the countryside was so vast that no one found her until the next morning, cold and dead. I was four, and I remember waking up alone and freezing in our trailer. I somehow made it to my Grandpa’s trailer, which was half a mile away from ours, barefoot and hungry.

I didn’t mourn my mother. I didn’t even know her; she was just the woman who said she loved me, but she never showed me that. Here I was, seven years later, and everything I left behind was catching upto me. Good thing I was fantastic at running from my problems, except it was kind of hard to run in Jimmy Choo heels. Being so used to city lights and the constant coming and goings of people, I forgot how things worked in a small town. There was no taxi service after ten. But it wasn’t like I would want anyone to see me. Here I was walking to my grandpa’s trailer in heels and dragging my Louis V, not caring that the leather would get damaged. All these materialistic things that proved I was no longer trailer trash were nothing but dead weight. I ditched my shoes about halfway to my grandpa’s. My blistered feet were probably bleeding, and I couldn’t help but think this was karma at its finest, giving me the fate I so desperately tried to push away.

Why didn’t I have a car? Oh yeah, because Ashton took care of me. He provided for everything, ensuring I wanted for nothing. The penthouse was his; I helped clean it and paid a few bills.

I shook my head, not wanting to think about all the things he enjoyed taking care of. If there was a bright side in this mess, it would be my fat bank account.

Dammit, Ashton. I couldn’t think of him without bile rising in my throat. I let him sweep me off my feet for a lie.

It should scare me to be walking alone in the dark, but this was familiar—a little too familiar. The smell of pine was as comforting as it was suffocating, reminding me of things better left in the past. The back roads were just like I remembered them—lonely, dark, and beautiful. The tall green trees and pines added a touch of magic to the town while the darkness served as a cloak. I didn’t need to be seen just yet. I stopped and stared at the water when I passed the bridge where my mother drowned.

“Was it worth it to lose yourself in alcohol? Was it worth it to lose everything running away from your demons?” There wasn’t an answer, and there never would be. I never understood my mother. How could a woman who named her daughter Freya after the Nordic goddess of love care so little for herself?

My feet were blistered, my luggage scrapped by the time I made it to the faded, old trailer. I was barely holding it together. History was repeating. I was lost and heartbroken when I made it here when I was four. Now at twenty-five, I could say the same. I stood in a mantle of darkness with nothing but stars to shine a light on me when my grandpa opened the door.

“Welcome home, my sweet girl.” And for the first time since I left San Francisco, I cried because the “perfect” life I had built for myself turned out to be a lie.