Us Again
Page 1
Us Again
By
Jennah Thornhill
Copyright
Us Again is the official workings of Author Jennah Thornhill Author of The Syren Series
©2019 Jennah Thornhill. All rights reserved.
Published in the UK.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
All events and characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental by all standards. Whereas you may read historical events taken place in Earth’s history, these written scenes are otherwise fictitious and should not be taken into account as ‘actual’ events. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference.
Formatted by Maria Lazarou ~ Obsessed by Books Designs
Edited by Maria Lazarou ~ Obsessed by Books Designs
Cover Design: Maria Lazarou ~ Obsessed by Books Designs
Dedication
For my naughty corner ladies.
You bunch of amazing ladies had faith in me when I didn’t have faith in myself. For that I will always love you all.
#naughtycornerforlife
Acknowledgements
Where do I start with all the people that have made it possible for me to do this?
The most important people will always be my family. Nathan, Mollie, Noah, Tracy my mum and Sam my baby brother. You are my rocks and my biggest supporters. None of this would even be possible without your love and encouragement. I will never be able to thank you all enough for putting up with me whilst I’ve had my head stuck in my laptop. I love you all so much.
All the ladies in my Facebook group Jen’s Lovelies - You crazy bunch rock. You make me laugh, smile and generally happy every day. Without you all, I actually think I would’ve given up, but you all had my back and kept me from pressing the delete button more than once. A simple thank you wouldn’t be enough for how much I appreciate you all being there for me, but I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got. I hope I haven’t disappointed you with this book, especially after all the teasing I’ve put you all through.
I love you all.
Tracy, my amazing PA, without this woman my work life would be a complete and utter mess. She keeps me organized and sane every single day. She’s not just my PA, she’s also become one of my best friends and I couldn’t do this job without her.
My book wife, my other half Sienna Grant. This woman will never know how much she means to me, if it wasn’t for her, I’m almost certain this book wouldn’t have got finished. She kicks my arse on a daily basis and believes in me when I don’t believe in myself. I love ya wife.
Maria Lazarou, this woman has put up with so much crap from me. I’m still wondering how she’s put up with me whilst we’ve edited this book. I love you lady; you’ve been amazing and have become someone I can’t be without. You are amazing at what you do, your editing and formatting is second to none, there’s nothing you aren’t willing to do for me.
Karina, Donna and all my other friends who I’ve bitched about this book to, you’re all fab for listening to me and encouraging me to carry on. I love you all massively.
True Love Always Prevails
True love will push all boundaries.
Test your resolve.
Bind your soul.
Break through barriers.
Stand the test of time.
Forever and always.
-ML-
Blurb
Eliza
Coming to college was my way of finding myself, then he happened…
We weren’t what you would call the perfect couple. He was gorgeous, popular and from a well-bred family, he was also captain of the baseball team. He was all set to make it big and play pro and I wouldn’t stand in his way to achieve his dreams.
I had to make the choice for us both; breaking my own heart in the
process is only a small price to pay. I had no intention of ever seeing him again, that is until that fatal day eight years ago and in a snap my life changes again. Nate Michaels is back in my life.
Can the secret I’ve managed to keep from him all these years stay locked away and hope we can be Us Again?
Nate
Eight years ago, I left town, I didn’t want to...
I wanted her and only her, but Eliza Rodriguez pushed me away
declaring she no longer loved me. I was willing to give up
everything for her, my family, and my dreams. Instead, she threw us away like a piece of
yesterday’s trash.
Since then, I’ve spent those years dominating the pitch and women… why shouldn’t I, she didn’t want me.
I never thought I’d ever lay eyes on her again, until the life I’ve become accustomed to, the one I made for myself without her, comes crashing down on me.
Will she be able to fix me...
Could we ever be Us Again?
Chapter One
Eliza
Freshman Year 2010
“Come on baby. It’s just you and me. We’re going to be great together, we’re suffocating here. We need to be free; I can look after us. We can do whatever you want, go wherever you want.”
Looking at the boy who had stolen my heart six months ago when I started college as a freshman, I knew I loved him. In fact, I was borderline obsessed with him. He only had to look at me with his bright blue eyes and my heart would start to beat so wild. I was convinced it was going to jump out of my rib cage.
“I can’t. You’re destined to go on to be something big. You finish your senior year in only a few months and you’re off to play pro. I don’t want to hold you back when the scouts come and see you.”
The pain it causes me to say those words to him is incomprehensible, but I have to say it to him before he makes the biggest mistake of his life.
Me.
We were both attending State University of New York, and met in typical college fashion. I was the lost, dorky looking student. Who reeked of first day nerves and no sense of belonging in a place like that. I was standing in the middle of the busy corridor with students bashing into me. Trying my damned hardest to figure out where my English Lit class was, when he came barreling into me. He was trying to catch a damn baseball, that one of his friends had thrown at him. Effectively knocking me on my ass for everyone to see. The rest is how they say history. Girl meets boy, boy meets girl and they fall in love.
I’d somehow got into college by the skin of my teeth on an English and Psychology scholarship. I wasn’t privileged like my other fellow classmates. I had to work my butt off to get here on a free ride. Nate on the other hand was smart. He had a 4.0 GPA and he was set to be the next biggest name in American baseball. He also came from one of the most prestigious families in this city. That’s where the problem was. I was his secret outside of college, I’d met his parents once by chance when they came to visit him. They had caught us in what I would call a compromising position in his bedroom. The conversation I heard them having outside the door, when they made it perfectly clear I was not what they wanted for their son. Will always play on repeat at the back of my mind….
“What do you think you’re playing at, Nate? Rolling around with a girl like that. She’ll only get you into trouble and take you for everything you’ve got.”
“Dad, just listen…”
“No, Nate! She’s not the type of girl you marry son. You’re in your last year of college now, it’s time to think about your life. She will not fit in with life path you will be going down.”
“Mom, Dad. Will you both please…”
“You have the scouts coming to see you from the Yankees next month. Do you really want them to see you with someone like her? Not choosing you for their team, because of the company you’re keeping? Think about it will you? She will only kill your career before it’s started. So, no. It stops and it stops now.
Unable to listen to any more of what they were saying about me, I put my earphones in and drowned them out with my music. While the tears silently slid down my cheeks.
To this day Nate doesn't know I heard what was said about me and I intend on keeping it that way.
Taking my face in his hands, he lifts my head so we’re looking each other in the eyes, pulling my mind back to the present.
“Eliza, I don’t care about any of that. It all means nothing if I don’t have you with me.”
“You say that now, but in the end, you will just come to resent me. I’d rather be unhappy without you, as long as you were happy doing what you love most in the world.”
Flicking his college baseball cap, I give him a weak smile, before placing a gentle, lingering kiss to his lips.
“Don’t do this, baby. We can make each other happy no matter what life throws at us. Don’t let the fact that I’m off to play ball, get in the way of us having a life together.”
He’s clutching at straws now trying to keep me with him.
“It’s for the best, Nate.”
Upping my game to make him realize that I meant what I was saying, my hand comes flying out from nowhere. My palm connecting with his cheek, making his head snap sharply to his right. My handprint evident on his olive skin.
I have to push him away; I have to remain strong on the outside even if I am breaking on the inside.
He can never know that what his parents said that day would actually come true.
I was nothing, but trouble. I would only hold him back.
It has to be this way.
Chapter Two
Nate
Senior Year 2010
Eliza’s shut down, emotionally and physically. I can feel it in the way I kiss her. There's none of her usual passion behind it. Her eyes haven’t got their familiar warmth or sparkle in them. They’re just blank and she reels off the crock of shit, as to why she’s doing this. Detaching herself from me, from us. She's never lashed out at me like this before, this isn't the girl I fell in love with. My skin stings from where her hand connected with my face. I’d take what she had to do to me, to make herself feel better, a million times over, if it meant I got to keep her at the end of it.
I'd give her the world and more if she would let me. I don't just love her, she's my life, my everything. A part of me, my heart beats because of her. I'd give up my future in baseball for her and fuck what everyone else thinks.
Even my parents.
“Eliza, please I'm begging you. Don't walk away from what we have, you can't deny that we go together perfectly. Even I can see that at my age. I maybe only twenty-one but you're it for me, Eliza. You make me feel things I have no right to be feeling, you make my life bearable. Make me believe I can go on and be anything I want, without expecting anything. You want me just for me and not for what you can get from me.”
I’m rambling now, trying everything I can to make her change her mind. I try to take her hand in mine, but she whips it back and out of my reach, before I can connect with her.
“Nate, it has to be this way. I'll be here and you’ll be off travelling the world. I can't just up and leave college. I have to graduate and I won't hold you back while I do it. You need to be free, so that's what I'm doing. I'm setting you free, baby. It's time for you to go out there and shine. Show them scouts what you can do and make a name for yourself. You're gonna be the best. I just know it.”
Leaning up on her tiptoes, she places a light kiss on my cheek, her tears transfer to my skin and her delicate fingers caress along my jaw.
“Goodbye, Nate.”
With them final whispered words in my ear, she quickly turns away from me and dashes from my apartment. Quicker than a rat up a drainpipe. My entire life just walked out on me, taking my heart with her.
In that moment I know I will never see her again; I also know I will never love another woman the way I loved her. I can't trust that if I did, I wouldn't get crushed again. Women are these cute and sensuous creatures. Who, in the end are only secret devils who rip your heart to shreds.
Chapter Three
Eliza
Sophomore Year 2010
Six months he's been gone. Six months of nothing but tears and regrets. The day I walked out of his apartment; I knew I'd never be the same again. I didn't just shatter his heart, I ripped mine straight down the middle as well. Every day I bleed out and still weep for the man, who will never know why, I did what I did. Coming back to college after disappearing for over six months is a tough pill to swallow. My professors were all informed of my situation and its delicate nature. They allowed me to finish my freshman year through an online program. On the promise I came back and finished the remainder of my course on campus. It was a no brainer really, I always planned on coming back. I just needed some time to get my shit together, then start a fresh.
With no Nate.
We are starting the sophomore year after summer break. Nate’s no longer here and I'm not the same girl I was, when I broke both our hearts. I’m tougher, thicker skinned and have one goal in mind… To get my medical license and become a kick-ass therapist. If I’ve learnt anything in the last few months, that is talking through your shit with someone helps. I want to be that someone for people who have no-one to turn to. I want to help others realize that there is a life beyond their issues. That you can move on and not let those issues define you as a person. I’ve changed my major around to help me get where I want. I just have to focus, avoid any TVs, newspapers and sports magazines.
My best friend Sammi knows everything I’ve just been through; I trust the girl with my life. She’s been the other half of me since high school. We can finish each other's sentences; we know when the other one is hiding something. Most importantly, we both know when then other one is hurting. She’s picked me up off the floor on more than one occasion. Covered for my ass more times than I care to count. Basically without her, I’m scared to admit I might not even be here.
I’ve thought about ending my life on more than one occasion. I fucked up and I couldn’t handle it all. I felt so alone in this world, that I thought that by not being here it would be easier. When Sammi caught me with a bottle of vodka and a razor blade, I realized quickly that I was being a coward. That I was wrong in the choice I had made, thinking it was for the best for everyone in the long run.
The only thing is, the one person I needed more than anything in this world, was off living his dream, because I pushed him away and broke his heart. Maybe one day if he ever finds out, he’ll realize that I saved him from a lifetime of misery. A life where he would end up resenting me and only staying with me out of duty.
Walking through the main door, I stop dead in my tracks, taking in the familiar halls. The chatter of the other students who are excited to be back after break. The smell of fresh paint that’s been painted on the walls, while we’ve all been away. My lack of blatant disrespect for blocking the main door while I take in my surroundings, causes students to push past me. Knocking me right, left and center, but I don’t care. That is until I hear the all too familiar voice, which knocks me out of my reverie.
“Yo, bitch. Get ya ass moving, we have some fun to be had. College is meant to be the best time of your life. That’s exactly what I plan on having and you’re coming on the ride with me.”
Sammi. That bitch, always knows how to make me smile, even when I don’t feel like it. She just has this ability to draw even the smallest of smiles from a person. It’s like she
’s a permanent ray of sunshine.
Coming to a halt in front of me, she clicks her tongue at me, while giving me the once over.
“No, no. This won’t do girlfriend.”
She gestures with her hand from the top of my head to my feet with her hand, while shaking her head.
“This outfit has got to go. Summer break maybe over, but it’s still like stupid degrees out there. You’re also almost a nineteen-year-old woman, with a figure to die for. Not a ninety-one-year-old granny, who’s attending a funeral.”
Talk about being blunt.
Did I also mention that Sammi is fashion obsessed, she’s a fashion major here at State. She has dreams of having her designs showcased in New York fashion week eventually.
To the outside world and people who don’t know her, she’s your typical dumb blonde, who probably couldn’t even count to ten. Yet she’s one of the smartest people I know. Sammi just hides it and lets people think what they want, because she has that kick ass, I don’t give a fuck attitude. She really is amazing; she just doesn’t show it to people she doesn’t care about. Only a select few know the real Sammi and I’m honored to be one of them.
So, her standing in front of me, with a hand on her hip. Tapping her foot in annoyance, tells me I’ve committed a massive fashion crime this morning, when I got dressed. Looking at the two of us together, you would wonder why we were even friends. Compared to her bright disposition, I’m Morticia Addams on a bad day. Glancing down at my choice of garments today. I take in my black, ripped baggy boyfriend jeans and my Harley Davidson hoodie, that’s probably five sizes too big.