It’s All
Coming Back
To Me
Michelle Marra
November 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5323-9016-6
It’s All Coming Back To Me
Author: Michelle Marra
Copyright ~ Michelle Marra
Cover Artist: Traci Marra
Published by: Amazon Kindle
This book is a work of fiction. All names and characters as well as all incidents within this book are created by the author’s creative mind and are entirely fictitious. Any similarities to real events, names, etc. would be a coincidence.
Dedication
For Traci…thank you for always taking the journey through my worlds. I love you!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank God for the gift he has given me. From the time I was a child, my creative mind was always conjuring up worlds inside my head. I’m so thankful He has given me the motivation to pursue this passion.
I would like to acknowledge my wife, Traci Marra. Thank you for your support, encouragement, patience, praise, and your tireless efforts to help make this manuscript better than it was. Thank you for the countless hours and numerous re-reads of the book. I love you…such much!!!
Thank you to my Beta, Connie Collins. It’s the betas that find the hard stuff. Thank you for your efforts and persistence to help make this a great book.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Message from Michelle
About The Author
Other Books From The Author
Prologue
I hear the roar of my family when I cross the stage to receive my diploma. I smile for the photographer and pose with a peace sign. This is just a formality for my mother since she texts me while I stood in line with the other graduates, ‘to get the sour puss off my face and smile for the camera.’ I’m sure she wants to frame it over the mantle like it is some medal of honor. She would be horrified to know I barely scraped by with my GPA this last semester.
I look out into the crowd at my parents and my two younger brothers who are smiling and waving at me like crazy people. I look past them and around them hoping to see her. I made one last-ditch effort to mend things with my girlfriend, the woman I’ve been in love with for the past seven and a half years. Asking her to come to my graduation, asking her to please not write me off. But I don’t see her, and my heart instantly sinks while I do my best to pinch back the tears as I wave back at my family.
They’re proud, I know they are…I can see my mom and dad beam. My two younger brothers Seth and Brian are now looking bored. I can’t blame them, I am as well, and now that I have this diploma I’m ready to vacate this stupid campus.
My SUV is already packed with my personal belongings, everything else I left behind. My girlfriend, Sam, on the other hand, still has another year so she will keep the apartment. She decided to add Physical Sciences to her major and needed twenty-four more credits to complete her degree. She did this without consulting me and didn’t tell me anything about it until two months ago. Even though I was angry at her, I understood. I told her to still come home with me over the summer so we could get started with everything we had planned. I would work on the rest while she finished up her last year.
However, that wasn’t in her plans either, because she also told me about ‘her’ plans this summer, and they didn’t include me. She said she needed to find herself and I didn’t find out until days later that ‘finding’ herself came with another woman. I’ve been utterly devastated. I haven’t seen her in nearly a month, and it’s killing me. I couldn’t concentrate, could barely get out of my own way these last couple weeks of class. And when finals came around, it was an utter disaster because I pretty much bombed on them all. Fortunately, all my grades prior pulled me through, and at that point, I didn’t care because my heart was broken.
“Laurel.”
I hear my name and my head snaps to the source. It’s Sam. She came! My face lights up, and I make my way to her ignoring my family yelling for my attention.
“Oh my God…Sam. I’m so happy you came,” I say as I pull her into my arms and kiss her on the mouth hoping the foreboding feeling eviscerating my heart is just my imagination. But then I know it isn’t when she pulls away with the same look on her face she had when she ended us.
It has been a painful several weeks since she told me it was over, leaving me in tears and a broken mess. It was for me she was ending it because she didn’t want me to put my life on hold. Especially, while she was still in school over fifteen hundred miles away when she was uncertain what she wanted to do with her life. I remember the conversation well because it became a huge fight when I told her I knew about her and Gwen. Even now thinking about the love of my life touching another woman, kissing another woman gives me a horrible pain in my chest and I feel like I could just drop dead from heartache.
We planned to set up shop in my hometown of Camden, Maine. With us both having doctorates in psychology, we were going to set up a counseling center which would encompass help for drug and alcohol issues, childhood trauma, sexual trauma, PTSD, depression, anxiety and everything in between. It was my dream to live in the town I loved and do the thing I loved which was to help people. Sam wanted it too, at least that’s what she told me. She fell in love with the beautiful coastal town the very first summer we spent together and every holiday, spring break, and summer vacation since we’d spent it with my family.
But now, as I pull her close and my tears begin to sting my eyes, I can feel her stiffen in my arms. I pull back and search her eyes hoping to find a hint of that girl who captured my heart and promised the moon to me, but I only see pity and sadness which makes my anger well up again.
“Laurel,” she says to me as her own eyes begin to glisten. “I couldn’t let you go with the way we left things the other night.”
And I think…‘yeah, the night you confirmed you were fucking someone else.’ But I don’t say it, I don’t want to ruin this moment and have her run from me faster than I know she is going to do anyway. I’m just hoping that looking into my eyes and seeing all the love I have for her would…I don’t know, make her rethink her decision.
“Sam…please don’t do this.”
“Look, Laurel, nothing has changed. It’s not going to work, it’s not what I want anymore. I told you that.”
“I’ll stay here, I’ll come with you. Whatever you want to do. Sam, I love you.” Now I know the tears are really coming and I don’t want my mother to see me in such a state because she is going to want to take pictures.
“We don’t want the same things.” I can see her eyes slightly roll at the confused look on my face. Because this wasn’t the first time, she’d said it. “Laurel, I don’t love you.”
“Since when? We were everything to each other just a few months ago. How did that change so fast…ho
w did you decide to change your world, our world in a matter of days? Was it that bitch, Gwen?” My voice cracks and now I feel as though my knees are going to buckle at any minute.
“No…this has been coming for quite some time. And I’m sorry, but if that is the only way for you to get this…to understand the fact that it is over, then I need to tell you the truth.”
“Then why the fuck are you here? Just to grind my heart into dust?”
“No…I wanted to congratulate you. I wanted to tell you that you’re going to do amazing things. And I wanted to tell you that what we shared has been really special to me. I just want something different for my life now. It’s just not psychology and a planned out life with you. I want to travel, I need to find myself…I want to experience life while I’m young enough to do it.”
I look back at the bleachers still full of people trying to file out of the auditorium and find their graduate. I see my family just about ready to breach the exit, and then they will know…they will all know that Sam, the love of my life, is dumping me right here and right now. This was supposed to be a happy day. A day of celebration. At the age of twenty-five, I have a Ph.D. in Psychology. But it is a day of heartbreak.
She leans in and kisses my cheek, “You’ll always have a special place in my heart.”
Right now I’m so hurt and so pissed off. How dare she come here and do this to me today…how dare she bust up my heart again. I was okay…yes, I was in pain, and yes, I was on the verge of tears several times during this excruciatingly long graduation ceremony. But I was holding it together.
I clear my throat and narrow my eyes, “Well now that you had your say again, let me have mine.” At this point I see my family beginning to approach us. My brothers are leading the charge…they love Sam. I know it needs to be quick before the voices I can hear in the distance are standing among us…because I don’t do drama.
“You want to go find yourself, go. No one is stopping you. As for the other meaningless sentiments, you spewed from your lying mouth…stick them in your ass. Enjoy your life, Sam. I may be hurt…but I’m not broken. I’ll get over you and the place you hold in my heart…well, it won’t be so special.” I push the tears from my face, wipe my nose on the edge of my black gown, will a smile on my face and spin around to receive the long-awaited congratulatory hug from both parents at the same time.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sam fist bump the boys and walk away without looking back. My eyes close as I fight as hard as I can to pinch back the tears and swallow the golf ball sized lump. Sam wasn’t only a huge part of my life and my heart…she was my everything. I don’t know how I’m going to do this by myself. Because the life I wanted, the life I thought we wanted, has just been blown to pieces. Now I need to figure out how to live my life without her.
Chapter One
Eight years later…
“P lease welcome our next guest, Dr. Laurel Matthews!” I hear Joy Bernhart shout as I walk out on the stage of The Viewpoint while applause thunders through my ears. I had my reservations accepting this interview after the controversy my last book created. But my manager said it would be good for book sales and ratings for my show, ‘Ask Dr. Laurel.’
It started as a blog eight years ago which was the result of my busted heart. Yes, I had Sam to thank for the countless tears and sleepless nights. Oh and also for the mini breakdown I had which led me to drown myself in booze and any warm body I could find…guy, girl – gay, straight; it didn’t matter. Really doesn’t matter now who I fucked then or who I’m fucking now. They’re all just faceless and nameless bodies which provide me with a night of passion and pleasure here and there.
But I know since my book was pretty much a ‘tell-all,’ my love life…or really my sex life will be the topic of conversation with the ladies of The Viewpoint.
I smile and wave to the audience as I take a seat, then I turn to my left giving Sara Pines my signature seduction smile with a wink causing her to blush. I giggle as my eyes catch the rest of the ladies at the table laughing at Sara’s reaction. The audience begins to whistle and shout which gets me pumped up, I push my dark brown hair behind my left ear as I lean over quickly and pull her into an unsuspected, yet sexy closed mouth kiss. Everyone, at least anyone who read my blog and my newest novel, knows I have an affinity for blue-eyed blondes.
When I release her lips, she has that look on her face that I’ve seen hundreds of times…a juxtaposed look of confusion and enticement. She stares into my hazel eyes with a question in hers and while that was just for show, for entertainment purposes…I would love the opportunity to shove my tongue down her throat. But instead, I lick my lips tasting her razzberry lip gloss, smile and turn back to the camera.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see how flustered she is and is now fanning herself with both hands, “Whew…well that was a first,” she says with that wide-mouth smile that I find so adorable.
“Okay…okay, let’s get back to the interview now,” Joy says trying to get the table to stop laughing hysterically.
“Sorry about that,” I say, “I just couldn’t help myself. This one is hot.” I gesture to Sara with an extended thumb.
“Well try to control yourself for the rest of the interview will ya?” Joy flashes a broad smile and taps her cards on the table.
“Absolutely,” I say as I wink into the camera.
“So in the acknowledgments section of the book, you thank your college girlfriend for your success. However, as I read the book, I see that this college girlfriend broke your heart, derailed your plans for private practice, and is responsible for your philandering ways.”
“Yes,” I say and take a deep breath. Although it was eight years ago, the pain of it still tears through me at times, and I don’t want to shed tears on national TV. “She wanted different things.”
“Different than what you planned? In your book, you stated that you and she were going to open up a counseling center in your hometown.”
“Um…yeah. We wanted to develop programs to help teens with alcohol and substance abuse as well as hold seminars and assemblies to talk to kids about the dangers of alcohol and drugs before they’re tempted by social pressures. We wanted to create a place where other professionals would join our cause to help people with the scars of life.”
“But that was thrown out the window when she dumped you a few weeks before your graduation,” Sara says as I look at her and the blush that had dissipated is now beginning to resurface.
“Yup, I spent months in a funk that led me to the blog,” I say as I remember the early days of it when it was nothing more than a rant about love and broken hearts.
“That blog took off,” Joy says as I take a sip of water out of my ‘The Viewpoint’ mug.
“It sure did…” I’m about to elaborate when Sara chimed in.
“Is that when your promiscuity took off too?”
Now it’s my turn to blush, I knew this coming, but I guess I’m really not prepared to discuss it. However, that is what I’m here to do since the book is mainly about my casual hookups. I sigh loudly as the hordes of faces, both men and women, begin to fill my brain and I start to slut shame myself.
“Well, I was never like that before the breakup. I was a shy girl that went to college young and naïve, met and fell in love with her in undergrad school. We planned to get married, to have a family, and settle down in Maine with our practice until we retire. She was the only love I ever had, the only sexual partner I ever had. She was the love of my life, and I guess I was naïve to believe it was forever…to think that someone I gave my heart and soul to could hurt me that way. But it happened, and it took me a while to understand. To um…come to grips with the reality of pain associated with love. So I studied it, researched it because I needed to know.”
“To know why people break up with other people?” Joy asks as my eyes deflect from hers to the audience. I’m doing my best to keep the façade going, to keep up this charade I live under daily.
&n
bsp; “No…I needed to know why love dies.” I giggle slightly at the look on Joy’s face. “And the fact that it does, the fact that it is fleeting, the fact that it can end at any moment without any warning, and the fact that it, for lack of a better term, sucks. I don’t trust it, and I don’t want it.” I shrug my shoulders, “I love my dog, I love my family, and I love my job…but romantic love beyond the physical is not for me.”
I see a sad look cross Sara’s face, “You don’t want to fall in love again?”
I shake my head, “Hell no…I’m happy where my life is right now. It took me nearly two years until I grasped the situation of my life after the breakup. My show is about how to get over heartbreak, and while I don’t believe in it, I never steer anyone away from the possibilities of love in the future.”
“Well there ya have it folks, Dr. Laurel Matthews, host of Ask Dr. Laurel and author of The Game of Love,” Joy says as she holds up a copy of my book, “Everyone in the audience gets a copy…autographed!” She yells out as the audience applause is accompanied by whistles and shouts of delight.
They break for commercial, and I stand from my seat watching as the stagehands start arranging furniture on another section of the stage. I shake everyone’s hand, give them a quick hug before I’m escorted to my changing room. I begin peeling off my clothes to put something more comfortable on when I hear a knock on my door. I’m a little apprehensive about opening the door, I think it might be Sara to smack me in the face. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been cracked across the face for stealing a kiss. So in an effort to get her all flustered again, I don’t button up my shirt or don my pants. I stood there with bra and panties exposed as I pulled open the door.
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