Forgetting Yesterday by Meg Jolie Read Free Book Online Page A

make a clean break and just get away. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where there could be confrontations. Not if I didn’t have to. So I just tried to pretend like everything was okay as I counted down the days. The day after graduation, the day I got my degree, I left. And I came here.”
    “You’re sure he doesn’t know where you are?”
    I shook my head, wishing she would stop worrying. “I don’t know how he possibly could know.”
    “ Good,” Claire said firmly.
    “But I made it clear that we’ve been over for a long time. Even if he didn’t want to hear it, he had to know it was true,” I said quietly. “We were just no good for each other.”
    She rolled her bottom lip through her teeth before saying, “I’m so glad that you see that. I’m sure you’ll find a job. I hope you’ll fall in love with the town. You just wait and see. Everything is going to fall into place. I’m sure of it.”
    She raised her nearly empty wine glass up to my nearly empty wine glass. We both smiled, relieved to be moving on from the conversation at hand.
    “Here’s to hoping,” I said.
    “And old friendships and fresh starts,” she added.
    We clinked our glasses together and though her words were cheesy, I believed every word.
     

Chapter 5
    I gazed at my face in the mirror as I pulled my long, blond hair back. It was Thursday. The bruising was better. Not gone, but better. I let out a sigh as I let my hair fall down around my shoulders again. My face looked pale making my gray eyes look a little dreary.
    I ’d spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday tucked safely inside of the house. I’d been bored out of my mind.  Alex had knocked at the door each morning to let me know he’d arrived. He’d done the same in the evenings with an update for me to pass along to Claire. Other than that, I’d been on my own.
    I ’d worked my way through a small stack of movies and tried to read an old romance novel that Claire had tucked away. It hadn’t held my interest.
    After that, I’d decided to update and tweak my resume as I furthered my job search. There were a few possibilities in nearby towns. By that afternoon, I was feeling somewhat better about my prospects. Not great, but better. I had even submitted a few electronic applications.
    As for try ing to do anything else, well, I was distracted constantly by the noise on the roof. Alex had brought a small crew with him, two other workers. I could’ve sworn I heard every footstep they took. I knew they were in a hurry to finish up, before the rain came in.
    I was glad to have them finishing, not so happy about the rain. I wanted to spend some time out in the sun but I felt a little too self-conscious to hang out in the yard with a roof full of guys. To kill some time, I decided to make something for lunch. Claire had gone shopping the night before, something I had told her I’d be happy to take over soon. I was sure that even if I got a job, Claire’s work schedule would always be busier than mine.
    After t hree days of canned soup for lunch, I decided to make calzones. Not only did they sound good, it would take me awhile and fill up my afternoon a bit. That was something I desperately wanted to do. I pulled out the ingredients and set to work.
    The y were already in the oven and I was cleaning up the ensuing mess when the doorbell chimes rang throughout the house. It only made sense that it was Alex. Again. I wiped my hands off on the kitchen towel before I hurried to the door. I noticed then that the rain had finally hit.
    As I swung the door open, I saw his workers leaving. Alex was standing on the steps, barely sheltered from the downpour by the overhang.
    “Come on in,” I ordered.
    As he stepped inside he said, “We finished up. If you could just let Claire know we’ll come back tomorrow, hopefully when it’s drier, to do some clean up. I thought we’d be able to get everything picked up, but we didn’t. No sense doing it in this downpour.