We Became Us

by François Houle

  WE

  BECAME

  US

  a prequel novella to It Happened to Us

  FRANÇOIS HOULE

  Dawn Rainbow Books

  OTTAWA, ONTARIO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, establishments, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by François Houle

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  For permission requests, please email: francois@francoisghoule.com

  www.francoisghoule.com

  We Became Us/François Houle. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN: 978-0-9938351-6-2

  Published by Dawn Rainbow Books

  Cover Design: KD Design

  Cover Image: Danil Chepko © 123RF.com

  Editor: Ethan James Clarke, Silver Jay Editing

  In memory of my grandparents

  Flore & Léon

  Jeanette & Charlemagne

  Table of Contents

  December

  Did you enjoy We Became Us?

  Free Prequel Novella

  Story behind We Became Us

  Excerpt from It Happened to Us

  Connect with François Houle

  Acknowledgments

  Also by François Houle

  About François Houle

  DECEMBER

  1991

  Christmas was nineteen days away and expectations were already so high they were nearly impossible to live up to, but Mathieu Delacroix, a first-year student at the University of Ottawa, always kept himself grounded by thinking of his dead parents.

  He’d survived a tragic car accident that took the lives of his mom and dad when he was just six years old. Later on, he’d found out that his mother had been pregnant at the time of her death, which always made him wonder what it would have been like to have a brother or sister. Growing up, he’d memorized the definition of an orphan: a child who has lost both parents through death.

  So by definition of the word, he was an actual orphan.

  Parentless.

  He’d been raised by his paternal grandparents and had grown to think of them as his parents. Sadly, as time passed, the memory of his actual parents had faded to the point that if it weren’t for their picture on his dresser, he wouldn’t remember what they’d looked like.

  The sound of their voices had long been silenced.

  He loved his grandparents. They had done everything parents were supposed to do, and he would forever be grateful, but the one thing that made him feel lonely at times, especially during the festive season, was that he had no siblings. Some of his friends often told him he was lucky, that he didn’t need to share anything with anyone, that he didn’t have an annoying little brother following him around like a puppy, or had to wait hours to get into the bathroom because his older sister had a date and needed to make herself look hot!

  These things seemed rather trivial and he doubted they were as horrible as his friends made them seem.

  The voice of Professor Halfpenny (oh, there had been plenty of stupid jokes passed around during the first few days of class before everyone had gotten bored and moved on) stopped as the Teaching Assistant, Lori-Anne Weatherly, a fourth-year student, walked briskly to her desk and sat without looking at the professor or anyone else. Mathieu had noticed her absence these last few days and had wondered whether she was sick or simply not coming back.

  He’d gone to see Lori-Anne at her after-hours office a couple of times, not because he needed help, but because he’d wanted to see her. He’d pretended he didn’t quite understand something that had been covered during class, hoping to ask her if she wanted to go for coffee, but each time she’d seemed uninterested, so he’d bailed on the idea.

  But he hadn’t given up.

  Lori-Anne was a beautiful woman and, like a lot of young men in class, he’d been attracted to her instantly. However, it hadn’t taken him long to realize that she was as smart as she was stunning.

  A combination that was a little bit intimidating.

  Mathieu watched Lori-Anne from the safety of his seat in the third row. There were a couple of girls in front of him so it didn’t appear obvious that he was staring at her, but then he caught himself and looked away, not wanting to give off the wrong impression.

  And thought of his parents. They were a mystery to him, a memory that existed but had lost most of its reality. His grandparents often shared stories of them but he always felt like they were talking about people that he didn’t know.

  Strangers.

  And yet, he missed them.

  Or maybe he missed the idea of them.

  He knew it was the time of year when families got together. All he had were his grandparents and his Aunt Jacqueline, who had never married. She was a lovely school teacher, had the best laugh he’d ever heard, and lived in Belleville, a little over an hour away, so he didn’t see her often.

  She would come up for Christmas Eve though, unless driving was bad. He looked forward to having his tiny family together for a few days. Maybe someday he’d be lucky enough to have a family of his own, possibly three or four kids and a wife he adored.

  Which brought him back to Lori-Anne.

  She seemed off today. Her golden-brown hair, typically worn in a loose ponytail, was a tangled mess, and the circles beneath her eyes reminded Mathieu of someone who hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while.

  He also noticed that she wasn’t paying attention to Professor Halfpenny at all. Usually she stared at him as if what he was saying was completely new to her, like she hadn’t heard his lesson before—probably countless times. But today she was fixated with whatever was on her desk, and she seemed small, like she was trying to make herself invisible.

  Suddenly the classroom was so silent that Mathieu could hear someone wheezing behind him. He looked at Professor Halfpenny and saw him looking at Lori-Anne, and the way he was eyeing her didn’t seem quite right to Mathieu.

  Like . . .

  And then he got it.

  He might be young, but he’d been in love before and recognized the signs of a couple who’d had a fight, maybe had even broken up.

  It made sense now, why she’d been indifferent those times he’d gone to see her. Stupid him, he hadn’t even thought that she might be with someone, especially not a professor.

  Had he really thought a beautiful girl like her would be single? Duh!

  But Professor Halfpenny?

  The guy had a ring on his finger. Why would she want to be with a guy like that? Could a guy like Mathieu even have a chance?

  Mathieu could already hear his grandfather say you just have to ask.

  * * *

  Lori-Anne didn’t want to be here, in this room, with Miles, but she’d already missed the last three days and this was the last day of class before exams started next Monday. She wanted to be available in case some students needed her help, no matter how messed up her personal life had become.

  On the home front her father kept pressuring her to come and work with him in the family construction business after she graduated next April, so he could groom her to take over the reins once he retired.

  How many time
s had she told her dad that she wasn’t interested, that he could just give the job to her older brother Jim? She loved her dad but the thought of being around him every day was simply not something she wanted. She couldn’t wait to graduate, find a job, and move out. Good God, she was twenty-three and still living at home.

  Enough was enough.

  And she couldn’t quite her job as a Teaching Assistant, no matter what had happened.

  But being stuck inside these four walls with Miles—that is, Professor Halfpenny—was no longer something she looked forward to. Up until a week ago, that is.

  What had she been thinking? To get involved with a married man with two kids? His oldest boy was sixteen, closer to her age than Miles himself was. She’d known it was a mistake back in September when she’d fallen for his smooth lines and wanting blue eyes. She’d believed his lies about how his wife neglected him, didn’t understand him, didn’t want him anymore.

  Could she have been more naïve?

  It was all her dad’s fault. She’d wanted to distance herself from his control so badly that she’d convinced herself that falling for her English professor was her way out. Really? Had she really believed the man would leave his wife of almost twenty years for her? He was forty, nearly old enough to be her father.

  She had gone from one father figure to another.

  How pathetic.

  A good psychologist would have her figured out in one session. Probably less. She had become the clichéd mistress.

  She could just scream.

  Too bad Nancy, Jim’s wife, had not finished her degree in psychology. At least then Lori-Anne could have gotten her counselling for free. She loved Nancy like the sister she didn’t have. What her sister-in-law saw in her brother was something Lori-Anne had never been able to figure out. To her, he was the annoying older brother who was as much a control freak as their father.

  Lori-Anne pulled her shoulders closer, wanting to disappear into her desk, if that was possible. She stared at nothing in front of her, just to avoid looking at Miles. His voice, though . . . his voice was so damn sexy, each word rolling off his tongue like a soft kiss on the back of her neck, and it was all she could do not to run to him and beg him not to end it, to insist that she wouldn’t pressure him anymore to leave his wife, to promise that she was going to be the good and quiet mistress that he wanted.

  When had she become so weak? So needy?

  Just then the entire room felt too quiet, as if everyone had suddenly vanished. But she knew it was just Miles who had stopped talking, and she could feel him looking at her.

  Lori-Anne closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She could feel the weight of her mistakes crush her. This affair had screwed everything up, had completely derailed her plans. She continued to breathe deeply, each breath like a hand pulling the strong woman she’d always been back to the surface, restoring her strength, her common sense, and most of all, her identity.

  She was Lori-Anne Weatherly.

  When she finally lifted her head, it wasn’t Miles that drew her. She simply couldn’t look his way. Instead, she scanned the rows in front of her and saw many sympathetic looks, mostly from the female students who seemed to understand, but then her gaze fell on Mathieu Delacroix and she could tell he also understood what was going on. She recalled the few times he’d come to see her after class pretending to need her help, but he was an A-student and didn’t need her help. It had flattered her that he might have a bit of a crush on her but she’d been unavailable at the time.

  But now that had changed.

  Her affair with Miles had been a regrettable lack of judgement and she finally realized that she should distance herself from him as quickly as possible. She was too young and had too much ahead of her to let this indiscretion ruin her life. She had plenty of time to make things right.

  She was no one’s dirty little secret.

  * * *

  Mathieu didn’t mean to stare at Lori-Anne but now that he understood that she’d been unavailable and not necessarily uninterested, he found it impossible to take his eyes off of her. Sure he’d had a little crush before, but now he saw her differently, not just as a Teaching Assistant he’d tried to flirt with, but as a woman he wanted to get to know. And the fact that she looked like she’d just crawled out of bed, with no makeup and a tangled mess of hair that had apparently gotten the better of her, didn’t scare him off either.

  In fact, she couldn’t be more beautiful.

  And he didn’t just think it; it wasn’t some teenage boy infatuation. The feeling was real, if not a bit overwhelming.

  But he welcomed it. It had been a long time; far too long. Life hadn’t always worked out as he’d hoped, but he’d never lost the positive attitude and solid values his grandparents had instilled in him.

  And he knew they worried about him as they grew older. His grandmother had often dropped hints that she hoped he would meet a nice young lady someday.

  Soon.

  He understood her worries. They weren’t going to be around forever and she wanted him to have a family of his own. And he wanted that too. Someday.

  But he was just twenty-one.

  There was time.

  And maybe that time was right in front of him. What if Lori-Anne was the one? He didn’t want to put the cart before the horse, as his grandfather was apt to say, but there was no harm entertaining the idea.

  No harm at all.

  He could feel the stupid grin on his face get bigger and when he noticed that Lori-Anne was looking right at him, he wanted to dive behind the girls in front of him so that she didn’t see the moron he must seem.

  But before he could, he saw her smile back.

  * * *

  Funny how something as simple and innocent as a smile could not only energize a tired soul, but could also chase away what seemed like a lifetime of regrets.

  And it felt good.

  It really was more than just a smile; it was the latch that released all the locked-up feelings she’d been fighting with these the last few days. She’d made so many mistakes lately but finally Miles Halfpenny was withering away. She had run into his arms in search of vindication, and also to get a break from her father’s overbearing expectations, but today she needed neither.

  Maybe today was the day her life finally got back on track. She had come into class feeling small, rejected, and beaten, but that sense of dejection was beginning to fade.

  Replaced by a feeling of renewal.

  Lori-Anne gathered her belongings and walked out on Professor Halfpenny. She didn’t utter a word nor did she look at him, and as she pushed through the massive lecture hall doors that led out into the corridor, she knew in her heart that she was doing the right thing, that she was a strong woman and had never really needed Miles Halfpenny at all. As the doors closed behind her, she felt relieved, as if all the doubts she might have had had been left inside with Miles, where they belonged.

  At this point she didn’t care if she lost her Undergraduate Teaching Assistant position. Becoming a teacher had never been her dream anyway.

  * * *

  Mathieu watched Lori-Anne walk briskly across the room and get swallowed by the lecture hall doors that were so large and heavy that they closed with the speed of a turtle. He couldn’t figure out what had just happened and he couldn’t even begin to understand what any of it meant.

  Lori-Anne had smiled back, that’s the only thing he knew for certain.

  But why?

  Had she really meant to?

  When he’d lost his parents and had gone to live with his grandparents, he hadn’t understood why his parents weren’t coming back. Every night for months he’d had terrifying nightmares that woke him screaming and thrashing. His grandmother always came rushing to bring him comfort but he would kick and punch her to get away, shout that he wanted his mommy and daddy, not his grandma. She never backed away, and instead spoke in a very soft and non-threatening voice, a soothi
ng voice full of reassurances and patience and love. She would try to explain that unfortunately his parents couldn’t come back; as much as they loved him, they were with God now.

  He’d been angry with God for stealing his parents. He’d been just a little boy, a little boy who’d wanted is parents so much that he sometimes wished he were dead with them.

  Today was another day that left him wondering what was going on. The older he got, the more he realized how little he understood.

  What had just happened now with Lori-Anne?

  His grandmother had once told him that not all things in life made sense, that sometimes we just have to accept what is and make the best of it, and often we just have to listen to our heart and follow what it’s trying to tell us.

  That had made no sense when he was a six-year-old boy who had just lost his parents. But today, her words made sense. His heart was telling him that he should go after Lori-Anne.

  So he grabbed his things and left class.

  * * *

  Lori-Anne’s first thought was to go to the office she shared with Miles to grab her things, but then she worried that he might come after her there so she decided to simply go to her car and head home. Right now, the further away she could get from the university and Professor Halfpenny, the better. She knew she was still fragile, and if he came after her and made all sorts of promises, she might fall for his lies again.

  And she didn’t want to.

  She also had to tell her dad to stop pressuring her to join Weatherly Construction. He needed to accept that it wasn’t what she wanted, and respect her decision. She was certain Jim would do fine running the company one day (after all, he was a hardass like her dad, so she was pretty damn sure he’d keep everything and everyone in line), but that wasn’t the issue. No, the issue was that her dad wanted her because he needed her to keep Jim in line, but babysitting her older brother shouldn’t be her problem.

  Lori-Anne reached her little Volkswagen Golf, tossed her things onto the passenger seat, and headed home.

  As she pulled away, she checked her rear-view mirror and thought the boy who came busting out of the same door she’d come out of moments ago looked a lot like Mathieu Delacroix.