01

Many years later…

I was beaming like a fool but I didn’t care.

Since I was thirteen, I’ve had a series of odd part-time jobs on weekends and summers and I did my best to enjoy each one of them. The only one I regretted was my stint at a pet grooming store two summers ago where I sneezed my whole way through it.

The only job I’ve always wanted to score was one at Books Cabin, my favorite local bookstore where I’d spent many hours and money in. I’m no academic—romance books made up the bulk of my collection. I’ve always been perfectly happy to slip away into a fictional world where everything ended happily ever after. It’s all I ever needed out of a book.

Books Cabin had been hard to get into though. The small staff had worked there for years and turnover barely happened.

With college a few months away, I had to make one last play to get in there before I moved out of Bluefield.

So this morning, I printed off my resume, walked over there and handed it to to Lorne who owned and managed the place. He always reminded me of old St. Nick with his silvery hair, rounded flushed cheeks and gruff laughter. We always got along well considering I was one of his regular customers but I amped up the charm today as I begged and coaxed for just a couple of months on the payroll.

It took about an hour and a half before he said yes, reminding me that he was only taking me on because I was one of his favorite customers and that like his youngest daughter Rebecca, who was heading for NYU this fall, I was moving away.

I bounced out of the bookstore with a stupid grin on my face.

The fact that I haven’t heard back yet about my scholarship applications didn’t dim my excitement. It still felt like things were looking up for me. The financial assistance would be a massive help but if for some reason I can’t qualify, Timothy had assured me that my college money was safely set aside to cover my tuition. The money from the bookstore would help pay some of my initial living expenses until I could score another job around campus. I was setting off for college no matter what and I had the entire summer to spend in the company of happily-ever-afters.

« Cassie ! »

I whipped around the sidewalk and saw a yellow Chevy truck swerve past a cyclist and pull over at the curb next to where I stood.

Kathy and Deanna, two of my closest high school friends, stuck their heads out of the side windows and beamed at me. Their boyfriends, Chad and Nolan, pretty much chorused a ‘Yo !’ my way. High school boys.

« Where have you been ? » Kathy asked with an attempt at a glare. With her sunny blond hair and bright blue eyes, she always failed at looking anything other than an angel. « We thought you were meeting us at the lake. »

« We waited and waited but Nolan had to drive back home for Travis’s party, » Deanna added with a slight arch of her brow as if to remind me of Nolan’s brother’s birthday barbecue. « You’re still coming to that, right ? »

I smiled and nodded. « Of course. I went to apply at Books Cabin, that’s why I couldn’t make it earlier. Sorry. But they hired me ! Can you believe it ? »

Kathy groaned and rolled her eyes. « Don’t tell me you’re spending the entire summer in that bookstore. It’s our last summer before college. You’ve got two months left on your high school life and you’re going to waste it around moldy books. »

I instantly felt sheepish.

I didn’t have many friends in high school because I seemed to prefer books over people but Kathy and Deanna had stuck by me since middle school and there were many times in the past when I skipped out on them to go book-shopping or read at home instead. I liked most people in our year but to be honest, I wasn’t always sold on the usual things that interested them. At times, I felt like I was decades older than the people around me but I try not to spoil everyone’s fun by acting like it. So when the girls made me promise to spend this summer hitting the lake and attending all the parties we could possibly get into before we parted ways for college, I agreed.

Kathy was going to Columbia and Deanna to Boston University. I was headed to the University of Pennsylvania.

« The money’s going to help me with my move because Timothy would never give me any extra for that. But I’ll still have plenty of time to hang out with you, don’t worry, » I reassured them with the sweetest smile I could manage. « Now go and I’ll meet you guys at five, okay ? »

« See you later, babe, » Deanna said with a wink before Nolan rolled back into traffic.

I glanced at my watch. I had half an hour to get ready before the party. I should head straight home. I had to talk to Timothy about my not being able to work for him this summer. If he’d been more like Uncle Gary, I’d find him at the family-owned pawnshop, but he wasn’t and I didn’t have the time to hunt him down. Besides, it was going to be an ugly conversation and I’d rather save it for when I wasn’t about to go out and have a good time.

I walked for another ten minutes before reaching the charming yellow house with a white wrap-around porch on the street corner. It belonged to the Pendleys, first by my uncle and his wife, Aunt Hilda, who was my mother’s sister, and then by their only child, Timothy, who was a good fifteen years older than me.

My mother, Gabriella, died of cervical cancer when I was ten. She’d been a young widow and my aunt and uncle took me in. They weren’t by any means rich but they managed well, running a small pawnshop they simply named Pendleys. Timothy had been living somewhere else at that time so I didn’t see much of him until his parents’ death from a car crash two years ago.

He was currently my legal guardian and although he acted perfectly normal out in public, we did not get along well.

His gaze always lingered a little too long on me, his comments often off-color. Then there were also the dozen or so creditors calling several times a week, hounding after our unpaid bills thanks to his frequent trips to the casino and the bars where he recklessly spent whatever money the pawnshop brought in if it did at all. Hard to be sure these days as he barely shows up there to run it. I’ve aired my opinion once or twice about it and thankfully got no more than a cold look or a snide remark for it. He made no secret of the fact that he had absolutely respect for me—or just women in general.

I’ve tried to take the higher road before, persisting in being kind even when he wasn’t because it was just the two of us now and life would be so much easier if we got along. But the few times I tried to look after his well-being backfired on me. He was rude and mean when he was sober but when he was wasted, I would sometimes have an assortment of « accidents » which is what he calls them the next day after he spots a bruise or two on me. I’d come close to reporting him but considering the hold he had over my life and the funds necessary for me to start over somewhere, I resentfully kept my mouth shut.