Lacey was engaged. I had lost her for good.
I put my head against the window of the cop car.
All I could think about was Lacey.
She really couldn't be happy, right?
It would take years for me to find out the truth.
Lacey
FIVE YEARS AGO
I knew something was going to happen. The notion of being proposed to did float through my mind a few times but I just shook it off. Chris was a good guy but he was laser-focused on his career. Throwing a ring on my finger just didn't seem to be part of his plan in life. Which gave me time to figure things out.
I felt like my life had been sucked into some kind of weird vortex. I finished school and was immediately thrown into med school. I begged to take things slow because I was feeling so burned out. My parents insisted that I go right away. It was actually Chris who came to my aid. He was able to connect with my father in a way that I never could. Maybe because he was successful. Maybe because he had helped my father a few times with legal issues as he cashed out of the company he took us all to New York to work for.
Whatever it was, I was given a year to relax in life.
It seemed like a blessing, but it ended up as a curse. I was bored. I was lost. I was under the watch and control of Chris all the time. I ended up becoming almost something like a secretary to him. Running errands for his office, helping with paperwork, soaking in the life of the busy city. But the strangest feeling washed over me time and time again. Being in the middle of thousands - millions - of people and I felt alone.
There was nothing I could do to shake that feeling, either. No matter what I ate, drank, no matter how hard I tried to force myself to fall for Chris, it just wasn't happening. Even when he told me to find a house I wanted, that high was only temporary. I searched high and low for houses, the budget in seven figures. A dream for any woman. But each time I found a house and we would look at it, I'd find something wrong with it. To Chris, I'd make something up. It made me sound snotty, like a spoiled rich girl. The truth was that the problem with every house was that River wasn't inside it.
He hadn't slipped my mind and he sure as hell hadn't escaped my heart.
I started school again and things were feeling somewhat normal. My dream of being a doctor seemed way off in the distance, and not because the classes were hard.
I just didn't want it anymore.
I washed my hands in the bathroom of the fancy restaurant and checked my makeup. Makeup. I never cared to wear that stuff but Chris liked it. My mother insisted I make myself look appropriate at appropriate times. The entire existence of reality had become this insane blur. I mean, when I thought about it, it was all insane. My father always made great money. We always lived well above most people. But the opportunity to go to New York turned my parents into millionaires. I was instantly rich. I never had to worry about money ever in my life. But it meant nothing because I wasn't happy. So, that whole crap about money not buying happiness really proved true.
Drying my hands, I exited the bathroom and Chris stood a few feet away, smiling.
He was in a fancy suit. His teeth glistened against the light. His hair was perfect. His smile was perfect. Any woman would be lucky to have his attention and right now, his attention was all mine.
"Everything okay?" he asked me.
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah. Your father wants to slip out for a cigar. I needed a breather from the table."
"Sorry. I know they can be intense."
"Your father wants to sue the neighbor."
"What?"
"Something about land and vegetation."
"They have so much … "
"Feed the machine, Lacey," Chris said with a grin. "That's what I've learned. There's never enough when you're wealthy. It becomes a drug. An addiction."
"Please don't sue my parents' neighbor," I said.
"I wouldn't get involved. Family and business don't mix."
Chris winked and offered his arm.
I took it and walked back to the table.
We were in the middle of a restaurant. All these fancy people with their fancy lives. In the back of my mind, I thought about River. Working at the shitty garage. Coming to see me as he wiped grease off his hands. The dirt on his shirt. The smell of his skin and sweat. Everything earned through back-breaking work. I thought about him taking me to the abandoned house in his beat-up pickup truck. The noises the truck made. The old, rusted smell of it.
The memories were flooding hard.
Suddenly, three men appeared and they took away my chair and Chris's chair. Then they grabbed the table - the entire table - and carried it away. My parents stood up and their chairs were taken.