Chapter 3

She'd even sunk so low as to hang around outside her old home, the home she'd barely had time to enjoy before being ousted. Having the cops cart you away in handcuffs because your replacement felt threatened by you hanging around her home as she carried the child that was by all rights supposed to be yours was about as horrifying an ordeal as she could've imagined.

That had been the last time she'd tried. The humiliation coupled with the restraining order had finally put the nail in that coffin. And if she hadn't exactly moved on, she'd withdrawn. She'd had to accept after all the knocks that her life was gone. The life she'd mapped out for herself had become nothing more than a tainted dream.

It had come to light after all was said and done that the affair was a well-known fact among their circle of friends. Everyone knew except the gullible unsuspecting fool who had put her life on hold for the man she thought was the love of her life and she his. He'd even talked her into putting off motherhood for a later time until he became established as a heart surgeon. She'd been so proud of him, of all his accomplishments and her part in all that, until the day she'd been served with divorce papers.

It was as though they'd waited until they'd gotten all they could out of her until there was nothing left to give before striking. Had the blow been meant to kill? She sometimes wondered because it had come damn close.

She pulled her mind back from those dark days as she got to her feet and rinsed her mouth out in the rusted sink. "Don't think Kerry, just move, please just move. Your life isn't over; you still have breath in your body. You worked to put that ass through school-you can work for you. So what, you wasted ten years, you can't get them back, so there's no use crying over it anymore. Pick your ass up and get it together, girl."

This was the latest in a long line of numerous pep talks she'd been giving herself lately, designed to get her out of the doldrums. None of the others had worked to date, but she was holding out for that one breakthrough.

She looked herself in the eye in the mirror over the sink as she gave herself her little pick-me-up speech. If only she could find the strength to fight, but sadly she had nothing left. She'd been well and truly gutted.

Leaving the stuffy little room that wasn't even a fraction of the size of the absolutely gorgeous bathroom she'd decorated in her old home, she took a fortifying breath as she headed for the kitchen and a cup of coffee. Hopefully, she'd keep it down this morning.

It was too depressing to look at the dingy walls with their grease stains and chipped paint, so sitting at the broken-down table that the last tenant had left, she got pen and paper and started writing. It had been some time since she'd had any interest in writing anything. It had once been her joy, her passion, but Paul had called it a silly waste of time. So she'd shoved all her notebooks in a box and put them away, never to be seen again.

Now that she looked back, she could see that Paul had always been a selfish, self-centered bastard. Everything they'd done together as a couple had been geared towards his happiness while, time and again, they'd put her wants and needs aside. And she'd gone along with it. The thought was humiliating.

She'd gotten a job as a waitress in one of the better establishments in their small town where the tips were good, so they could afford to put food on the table while her new husband, of whom she was enormously proud, went off to pre med and then med school.

Maybe she'd been too proud? Maybe she'd put too much stock in who he was going to be, and that had blinded her to what he really was? She didn't know anymore. All she knew was that someone else was living the life she'd believed would be hers, and she was left an empty shell of nothing.

They'd had so many plans. He'd promised that as soon as he started working, they were going to do all the things she wanted. The nice trips to Europe, the big house with nice cars, all the dreams young people have.

In the end, he'd preferred to live that dream with someone else. If she could go one day without reliving it, that would be good. But it seemed the lack of closure was going to haunt her for the rest of her miserable life. "Pull it together, Kerry, don't think."

She forced herself to concentrate on what she was doing, and in just a few short minutes, she was amazed. Her hands flew across the paper as the words poured out of her. It was almost unreal the way it came back to her-this love of writing. She settled into it and let the world fall away, her mind finally finding peace and solace in a new world of her own making.

She sat there for hours, not realizing the passing of time as she reacquainted herself with her once favorite pastime. By the time she was done, she'd written three chapters of a story and found her first smile in weeks.

She didn't dwell on the irony of writing a romance in the middle of her own personal hell. At least they hadn't stolen that from her, that ability to dream, to believe in something even if it was only on paper. As for the real thing, love could go fuck itself.

"Nope, not gonna go there. I'm gonna hold onto this little reprieve for as long as it lasts." She made up her mind not to let the dark thoughts in today. Somehow, she would find the strength she'd been lacking for way too long now to pull herself up and out of the muck.

Looking down at the papers in her hand, she grinned at what she'd achieved for herself. It was her first real smile in almost a year.

Feeling revived and full of energy, she ran into the ramshackle bedroom and dragged out the old box she hadn't looked through in too many years to count. She had sheets and sheets of paper in there, as well as backup disks with all her work from years ago.

Her high school literature teacher had once told her that one day she would make an excellent author, but she'd poo-pooed it away as just another adult being nice to the orphan. She was used to that.

Her parents had died when she was just a child, too young to remember them. She was left to be raised by her grandparents, who had hung in there long enough to see her married right out of high school before they too passed away within months of each other two years later.

That's what makes what she'd endured in the last year so heartbreaking. Paul had been the last link to her past. She had no one else, no family to turn to. He was all she had to hold onto in this world. Now she had nothing of her childhood left, nothing but harsh memories and sadness.

They'd had such great times in the beginning. Back when they were young and innocent, and he'd seemed so compassionate towards the girl who'd been orphaned before she even knew what the word truly meant.