Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
After Jenna disappeared, I came over to see Dick and Susanna a few times, but every time I did, all I could see was the Jenna shrine they set up for her memorial service. They never took it down. So many photos of Jenna throughout the years, most of which included me. I watched myself grow up right alongside Jenna in that shrine.
So I stopped coming over. It was too painful.
And I wasn’t sure I’d ever love again.
Then I found Mimi.
Blond and boisterous Mimi, who’s a lot like the girls I dated in high school before I fell in love with Jenna.
I put a ring on her finger six months ago, and the wedding date is set for next summer.
She knows about Jenna—that is, she knows about my best friend who disappeared the day I was supposed to take her to the senior prom.
She doesn’t know I was going to profess my love to her that evening.
My Jenna…
What she’s been through.
Seven years of being hunted and abused on an island owned by a billionaire who is now dead.
Dead and rotting in hell. He’d better be, anyway.
I still can’t think of it without my stomach twisting up in knots, without nausea threatening to overtake me.
When the news broke nearly a year ago that Derek Wolfe had been murdered and that his children had uncovered his secret island where he kept women to be hunted and preyed upon, I never imagined Jenna could have been one of those women.
Indeed, her parents kept it a secret until now. Apparently she’s been through a year of therapy and a lot of healing.
I’m thankful for that.
I can’t imagine what she’s been through…
No.
That’s a lie.
I can imagine it. I have a very vivid imagination, and if Derek Wolf weren’t already dead, I’d kill him with my own bare hands. Make him suffer for harming Jenna.
I wipe the thought from my mind, or I try to, anyway. I can’t go there. Can’t think of Jenna in that situation.
I stare at the wreath on the door—a harvest wreath made of twigs and mini pumpkins and resin turkeys. Thanksgiving was last week. Susanna hasn’t changed her decorations yet. Completely understandable, given Jenna’s homecoming.
Mimi has already turned her place—soon to be our place—into a holiday paradise. A little—okay, a lot—overdone for my tastes, but Mimi enjoys the holidays. A ten foot evergreen with neon flashing lights and a life-sized dancing Santa are the focal pieces. I haven’t decorated since I’m supposed to move in with her soon.
Which I’ve been putting it off. Part of me doesn’t want to give up my man cave.
I draw in a breath, trying to slow my heart as it threatens to beat right out of my chest.
What will I feel when I see Jenna?
I left her in the past long ago, and after four years of one-night stands and meaningless sex, I decided it was time to look for an actual relationship. Mimi and I met online, and we hit it off at our first coffee date. Within a month, she told me she loved me, so I said it back.
Indeed, I felt it.
I feel it still.
But my feelings for Mimi lack the depth of what I felt for Jenna all those years ago. I told myself that was normal. I was a high-school kid and I didn’t know what real love was. That I was fooled all those years ago. Fooled by our impending graduation, and I was looking for something concrete to take with me as I moved into the next phase of my life. That’s all it was. My best friend for fifteen years suddenly became everything I ever thought I wanted.
But it was ultimately an illusion.
Even then, the words felt like lies, but it didn’t matter, really, because Jenna was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.
I draw in another deep breath and pat my side pocket, gripping the outline of the velvet box.
The amethyst pendant that I bought for Jenna. I was going to give it to her after prom when I confessed my love. I kept it all these years, buried in my sock drawer. I could never give it to Mimi or anyone else, and though I could’ve returned it for a refund, I never did.
I couldn’t part with it. I always knew it was meant for Jenna, and I still think it is. So I’ll give it to her. Then I’ll walk quietly away, back to my life with Mimi.
Because that’s who I am now.
One more deep breath, and I knock on the door.
A dog barks. When the door opens, Susanna Holland stands there, looking more weathered than when I last saw her, which I’m ashamed to say was probably five years ago now. Her sandy hair is more silver than brown now, and crow’s feet mar the corners of her eyes.