Chapter 1 #2
We loaded the boxes into my car one by one.
“You sure you’re okay with moving?” Kelly asked softly, that familiar worry seeping into her voice.
“I don’t know, Kel,” I admitted, squeezing one last box into the remaining space. “But right now, it feels like the only thing I can do.” When I'd finally said yes to moving to Orange Falls, she’d practically exploded with excitement, already planning a hundred things we’d do once I got there.
“Trust me, Orange Falls is about to shake up your entire life,” she said, sounding so confident she could’ve been selling me beachfront property in Kansas.
“Because clearly, my life hasn't had enough earthquakes already,” I teased.
“Oh, please.” She scoffed. “Not that kind of shaking. I’m talking about good kind, like margaritas, not natural disasters.”
“Well, you had me at margaritas,” I said, and Kelly flashed me an I-knew-it grin as I closed the trunk. “Let me just lock up, I’ll be right back.” I’d barely taken a step before she caught my hand.
“Azzie,” she said, looking straight at me, sincerity in her eyes. “When I told Amy you were the best wedding planner, I wasn’t being dramatic for once. You’re going to make this wedding incredible. I just know it.”
“I know,” I said, squeezing her hand, even though my nerves were screaming the exact opposite. This was my first wedding in nearly four months. Well, technically second, if you counted the one I’d run away from halfway through.
I stood with the key in my hand, a strange heaviness settling around me.
It felt as if the house itself had reached out and curled its fingers around my wrist, begging me to stay.
The couch where I used to curl up for Sunday movie nights sat empty.
My bedroom still had the sunshine wallpaper I'd chosen when I was twelve and had proudly declared to Dad that yellow could fix even the worst days.
One deep breath. A slow sigh. I slid the key into the lock, the familiar click echoing softly.
One last quiet goodbye.
I turned toward the car.
There's a saying that some things refuse to let us move on and I felt the truth of it when my gaze snagged on the short woman standing near the palm tree in my yard, her face pale.
“Why the hell is she here?” Kelly hissed, halfway out of the car. “Azzie, don’t…don’t even think—”
“I'll be fine,” I said, already walking toward the woman before Kelly could finish her warning.
“What part of stay away from me do you not get?” I asked.
“Astrid.” The woman smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes, and took a step closer. She reached out her hand, and I instinctively stepped back, my stomach twisting at the mere thought of her touch.
“How…how have you been?”
“Why are you here?” My voice came out sharp and cold.
“I…I…” She sobbed. “I’m concerned about your—”
“Drop your act,” I interrupted. “You have one minute.”
“Just once, come see my husband,” she pleaded, desperation clear in her voice.
“He wants to—”
“You have the audacity to ask me to see him?” My tone was calm, unnervingly so.
“The man who murdered my father? Your husband has destroyed too many lives. He’s a killer.
Your tears won't change that.” The image surged back, vivid and gut-wrenching—Dad’s empty gaze, blood spreading thick and red around him.
His lifeless eyes were burned forever into my memory.
“Please, don’t call him a murderer.” She broke into trembling sobs. “He regrets it. He hasn’t been able to sleep peacefully since. It…it was a mistake”
“Can his mistake bring my father back, Lucy?” The words tasted bitter, burning my tongue. I refused to dignify her by using the last name she shared with that monster.
Seven letters he'd sent from prison. Ten times she'd shown up at my doorstep. Countless calls I'd long stopped counting. All to deliver her husband's pathetic pleas for forgiveness.
Forgiveness for a man who had raped a young girl.
When Dad took the case, Lucy’s husband had pleaded with him to drop it, even threatened him, but dad refused to back down. When the verdict came out against him, he pulled out a gun right there, on the courthouse steps, and shot my dad.
“I can't bring him back, I know that,” she choked out, tears slipping down her cheeks. “But please, let me make it right somehow. Anything you want, just name your price.”
A bitter smile tugged at my lips. Money . She thought money could fix this. “There’s not enough money in the world to equal what my dad was worth. Your husband doesn’t want redemption. He wants my forgiveness to ease his guilt. But hear me clearly: He’ll never get that. Never.”
Her tear-streaked face crumbled.
“A rapist like him belongs exactly where he is. Let him rot. It’s all he deserves.”
I stepped back, putting distance between us. “I’m leaving this city. If you ever come here again, all you’ll find is a locked door and silence.”
I turned toward the car.
“I’ll still keep coming,” Lucy called after me, her voice wavering. “One day...one day you’ll change your mind.”
I stopped.
But I didn't look back.