Chapter Six
Chloe
Meeting Mason Alexander for the first time was like feeling the power of a storm — thunder, lightning, one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds. The earth seemed to be washed clean for his entrance into my life. One moment the world seemed empty, normal... predictable. The next, I felt a shift in the air. I thought it was over when I walked away from him on that day in the park. I’ve now found out how very wrong I was. It’s been a year since our brief encounter, and this last one was more powerful than the first.
My life has been predictable for years now. I can admit, I’ve been in a rut. I’m twenty-seven and have been in the same relationship with my high school sweetheart for ten years. He was too old for me when I was sixteen, nearly seventeen, but our relationship is perfectly acceptable now. I was always more mature than others in my class when I was a teen. I couldn’t stand the immaturity of the boys I went to school with. It’s one of the reasons I liked Paul so much.
Life’s different now, though. I go to work, come home, barely talk to my boyfriend, watch some television, and go to bed. I do this over and over and over again. I don’t know how to escape, how to change my situation. No other options seem feasible. I can’t leave Paul. There isn’t a valid reason to do so. I’m stuck. I’m lonely. I’ve been lonely for so long. And even though we barely are in the same room together, it terrifies me to think of never seeing him again.
Each morning when I look in the mirror, I’m miserable with the reflection gazing back at me. I’m lost. I’m alone. I’m scared. The early part of my childhood was miserable. My father did the best he could, but he was a man, raising a young girl on his own. He also thought we should all go back to the Stone Age where we claimed our land, each person living by the honor system.
Fight the power. That was, and still is, my father’s belief. I don’t know how I grew up thinking so differently than he does. Maybe it’s because I didn’t like being poor. Maybe because I have dreams. Maybe because I want more.
I’m nothing spectacular, standing about five feet, four inches tall, long dark hair, hazel eyes. I haven’t stepped on a scale in over a year, but I’m neither fat nor skinny. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of my body. It is what it is. I wouldn’t be picked for the cover of Vogue magazine, but I also won’t be asked to buy a second seat on an airplane. I’m comfortable with the reflection that gazes back in the mirror.
I stopped caring what people thought about me around the time I turned fifteen. Those girls — you know the ones — the horrible popular girls in school, who have all of the money and power. Yes, teenagers have power. I didn’t realize their power was limited. It doesn’t last beyond the gates of high school. They won’t hold that power when they walk into the real world. They get to be at the top of the food chain for a few years, then life has a way of knocking them down when they’re no longer in the protective pack they made during those formidable years.
But they managed to make my life a living hell. I even tried suicide once. How had I given them that much power over me? I don’t know the answer. All I know is that they made me so miserable I once took an entire bottle of pills.
Luckily, or some would say unluckily, my dad found me and rushed me to the hospital where my stomach was pumped. The sight of tears in my father’s eyes shamed me. I never tried anything so stupid again. I realized what taking my life would’ve done to him. I would’ve hurt him much more than anyone could possibly ever hurt me.
At fifteen I realized those girls didn’t define who I was. I found a job, bought new clothes, and walked through those school halls with my head held high. When I looked in the mirror, the reflection staring back started to have confidence.
I wasn’t the most beautiful girl in school, but it didn’t matter. I was unique, talented, and had something to offer the world. They weren’t allowed to take that away from me anymore. They weren’t allowed to hold power over me. My life began that year. Once I started to truly live, nothing would ever be the same again. Doesn’t it happen that way for most people? Don’t they wake up one day and realize they’re more than what others think of them? I’ve talked to many people, and most say they once had that same flash of insight. Their ages might differ, but the flash is still there.
I was with a bunch of other teens from school at the dunes the day Paul appeared over the top of a hill. I loved the group I was with. I’d finally found a home — a place I was accepted. We were riding in the dunes, several parents having loaned their expensive four-wheelers for us to play with. I’d just gotten my hair done and felt confident, beautiful even, a first for me. There I was, standing next to my friends, my hair blowing in the breeze. No way was I tying it back, even though the coastal wind whipped it in my face. It was done to perfection — in my humble opinion. And for a girl who didn’t dress up much, I was quite proud.
One minute the world rotated normally, and the next, it was out of sync. I didn’t notice when it happened, when that second of time froze. I barely noticed him at first. I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, especially a boyfriend who was five years older than I was. Some teens would be disgusted by that. Paul didn’t look old, though. Also, I didn’t believe in myself enough to think a guy might actually like me romantically. I was a tomboy, playing rough and hard with the boys, not giggling and making out in the back of vehicles.
Paul had recently moved into town. I didn’t know him, didn’t necessarily care to know him. But he noticed me, and he seemed to only want me. This would later be the thing that made me want him — need him — rely on him. A questionable part of me still feels I owe him for choosing me, and it would be wrong to leave him.
But now that I feel attraction to another man, I’m questioning why I’m staying in a relationship I now feel trapped in. What am I going to do about it? I know one thing: Mason Alexander is trouble with a capital T. If I take him up on the offer in his eyes, I might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. I don’t always make the best choices. That’s been proven. So, what in the hell am I going to do now? Hopefully, wise the hell up.