Finding Home

by Erica Lee

  Chapter 1: Taylor

  “What do you mean this just isn’t working out?” I questioned, as my fiancé made her way around the apartment, throwing clothes and other knick knacks into a suitcase.

  She stopped what she was doing to roll her eyes at me. “Come on babe. You know things haven’t been going well between us lately.”

  No, actually, I didn’t know that. How was I supposed to know that? Throughout our whole five year relationship, we had barely fought even once. In fact, most of the time was spent with me waiting on her hand and foot while she walked all over me, but that was just our thing. It worked for us. At least I thought it did until my fiancé woke up this morning and nonchalantly announced that we should break up.

  I took a moment to study her as she calmly made her way around our shared apartment, with a slight smirk on her face. Stacy Nielsen was the textbook definition of sexy. She was tall with long blonde hair and sun kissed skin all year round and had the perfect hourglass figure. Granted, she wasn’t my usual type. I had always had a thing for brunettes that were shorter than me, but I wasn’t blind. There was no denying that Stacy was sexy as hell. Anyone could see that. Plus, she was the perfect embodiment of New York City as an upper east sider born and raised, which was exactly what I was looking for when I decided to completely let go of my small town life. I was actually shocked when she showed any interest in me. She was a trust fund baby who modeled in order to add on to the plethora of money she already had, while I was a struggling small town girl slowly trying to make my way up in one of New York’s biggest publishing companies.

  Stacy caught my eyes with hers and laughed a little. “Oh come on. Don’t look so sad. I’m not sure why this is coming as such a shock to you.”

  “You don’t know why it’s such a shock?!” I cried out. “We are a month away from our wedding for God’s sake.”

  Stacy waved a hand at me. “If you’re worried about the money, don’t be. My parents will take care of any charges we can’t get back.”

  While it was surprising that she wasn’t at all worried about the massive amount of money that had been put into our lavish New York City wedding, that thought actually hadn’t crossed my mind before she brought it up.

  “I’m not worried about the money. I’m just trying to figure out what I did wrong.” I felt tears coming to my eyes as I said those words.

  Stacy walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Oh honey, you did nothing wrong. To be honest, I’m just bored.”

  I scoffed. “Bored?! We just got back from spending a week in the Bahamas for Thanksgiving. What is boring about that?”

  Stacy perked up a little at the mention of our vacation. “Oh the Bahamas were wonderful, but that’s not real life. Our real life has just become so mundane.”

  The tears were running down my face now and I had to take a few deep breaths before I could get any words out. “You’re just going to walk away the moment things aren’t perfect? Why would you agree to marry me if you were willing to give up this easily? We were together for five freaking years.”

  Stacy just smiled and wiped a few tears off of my cheeks. “It’s not like I planned this. Sometimes feelings just change.”

  I took a deep breath before asking my next question, afraid of what her answer might be. “Is there someone else?”

  To my surprise, Stacy laughed at this question. “Oh darling, there are about a thousand someone else’s in this city. But if you’re asking if I cheated on you, the answer is no. I wouldn’t do that. That’s why I’m ending it now.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Wow. How noble of you to make sure we were through before you jumped into bed with someone else.” My eyes then went to the suitcase that she was still filling up with all of my belongings. “What are you doing with my stuff?”

  Stacy looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s not like we can live together now that we are broken up. That would be awkward! But don’t worry. I spoke to my father. You can take a paid leave of absence over the next month so you can stay with your dad while you figure things out. I’m having the rest of your stuff sent to his house. I found the address on the wedding guest list.”

  So many thoughts swirled through my head, the first being that there was no way this was a spur of the moment decision. Stacy had it all figured out, which meant that just a few days ago when we were soaking up the sun and talking about our honeymoon, it was all an act. There was no way that in the two days we had been back she had arranged to have all of my belongings shipped back to Pennsylvania and spoken to her father about my job. With that thought, a sick feeling settled into my stomach - my job. Would Stacy try to take that away from me too? I knew it was a bad idea to get involved with the daughter of the publishing company’s CEO, but when the smoking hot daughter showed interest in me, the nerdy girl who was grabbing coffees for editors at the time, it was hard to resist.

  “Could we at least have a discussion about this?” I practically begged.

  Stacy looked down at her watch. “Of course we can, but I only have a few minutes. I’m meeting some of the girls for lunch to discuss the best plan for informing all of the guests that the wedding is off.”

  A sarcastic laugh left my mouth. Apparently Stacy’s friends and family deserved the courtesy of finding out about our broken relationship before I did.

  I decided the best plan was to get all of my questions out at once since Stacy had a tight schedule. “Ok. Clearly I’m not going to change your mind, so I just have a few questions. How long have you been thinking about this? You seem to have it all figured out, so it couldn’t have been some epiphany you had this morning. What is with this leave of absence BS? Do I actually even have a job anymore?”

  Before I could ask anymore questions, Stacy put her hand up to stop me. “Slow down. I can only answer so many questions at once. Honestly, this thought has been in the back of my mind since we started getting deep into our wedding planning and I realized I was more excited about the party than the actual marriage. I only started talking to my family and some of the girls about it a few weeks ago. I didn’t make the final decision until yesterday though. I figured if our trip went well, I could just tell them that the wedding was back on. And of course you have a job. It would be unethical to fire you over a personal manner. I just figured you would need this time to recover and decide if you really wanted to continue working at a place with so many connections to your ex. It obviously wouldn’t be easy on anyone if you stayed.”

  So there it was. They were trying to do everything they could to push me out of there. How could Stacy do this to me? I loved this job. Well, that might have been an exaggeration. Even if it wasn’t all that I had expected it to be, it was still the job I had always dreamed about and she wanted to take that away from me.

  “What am I supposed to do now Stacy? You and that job were my whole life.”

  Stacy ran her hand across my cheek. “Don’t be so melodramatic. This will give you a chance to work on that little thing you’re always going on about.”

  “Little thing?!” I screamed, as anger replaced my sadness. “You mean the novel that I have been working on perfecting for years? The one that the publishing company won’t even take the time to look at.”

  “Yeah. That one,” Stacy replied calmly. “Daddy always said the premise sounded a little too country mouse, city mouse for his liking, but maybe you could get some little publisher to look at it. This will be good for you. When was the last time you went home?”

  I groaned loudly, as the tears returned. “Seven years Stacy. It’s been seven freaking years. Don’t you think there is probably a reason that I haven’t gone back? You know my dad and I don’t have the greatest relationship. I haven’t even seen him in like two years and we barely ever tal
k.”

  Stacy looked down at her watch again as though the conversation was boring her. “Well, this is a good time to start. You were going to be seeing him in a few weeks anyway. You know he was planning on coming to the wedding.”

  I did know that and had been worrying about seeing him ever since he told me. He did seem to be putting in more of an effort over the past few years and I had thought that there was a possibility of the wedding being a chance for us to reconnect, but that was one weekend surrounded by tons of other people. Living in close quarters with him for at least a month was a completely different story. Heck, I didn’t even know if he would want me there. Plus, that town. How was I supposed to….

  My thoughts were interrupted by Stacy shoving the suitcase towards me. “Listen, I hate to cut this short when you’re clearly struggling, but I have to go which means you need to leave too.”

  I silently followed her to the door, unsure what else I could say. Once she had locked it, she turned toward me and surprised me by pulling me into a tight hug. “Take care of yourself Taylor. I’m sure we’ll meet again sometime.”

  Just like that, she walked away, disappearing down the stairs and out of my life. I slid to the ground and let the tears fall freely. I could feel my heart breaking. My heart hadn’t hurt this bad since the last time it broke seven years ago. Although, this somehow still didn’t compare to that one. Nothing could hurt that bad. With that thought, the knot in my stomach grew. Going home meant facing the one person I had spent the last seven years trying to forget.

  Chapter 2: Alexis

  “Well, I’ll be. My little girl is coming home,” Mr. Bradley announced, with excitement building in his voice.

  I looked up at him in shock, as his words registered. The man standing in front of me looked so much like his daughter that, if he was younger, they could pass off as twins. He had the same dark brown hair and blue eyes, even if his hair had developed some gray patches over the past few years. He was tall and strong, which was something I would never forget about Taylor - the way she always had a good five inches on me, even when we first met in middle school. Actually, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget anything about Taylor Bradley, especially the feeling of her strong arms as they held me tight. I had to stop thinking like that though. It had been seven years since I saw her last. I shouldn’t still be able to picture the way her mouth would twitch into a half smile right before she kissed me.

  That was years ago and although her dad’s presence served as a constant reminder of the past, I was completely over her. Of course I was. No one held feelings for someone that long after a relationship ended.

  Mr. Bradley’s voice brought me back to reality. “Oh no. Something is wrong. She just sent another text saying that the wedding is off.”

  “Oh?” I responded nonchalantly, trying not to show interest in his news. I wasn’t interested. There was no reason for me to be. The only reason I even knew there was going to be a wedding was because I had overheard Mr. Bradley talking to my mom about it. From what I could gather, the wedding was supposed to be next month and the other bride had a questionable personality.

  Mr. Bradley looked up from his phone and made eye contact with me for the first time since the conversation started. His face contorted into an unsure look. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about all of this given your...uhh… history… with my daughter.”

  His words surprised me. I had known Mr. Bradley for fifteen years and in that time, I had never once heard him acknowledge the fact that his daughter and I had “history.” He was content with our close friendship during middle school and didn’t seem to notice when our relationship went from friendly to romantic after that one fateful kiss freshman year of high school. Sure, we were hiding it from everyone at that point, but it didn’t seem to take much for people to start to catch on. By junior year, we decided to confirm the rumors by coming out, but even at that point Mr. Bradley didn’t acknowledge our relationship. He wasn’t

  mean about it. He never once told his daughter that she couldn’t be with me, but from what I remember, when Taylor told him he had simply nodded his head in response and never brought it up again. He continued to refer to me as Taylor’s friend, instead of her girlfriend, and Taylor just let it be. She had never been extremely close to her dad and this just put a deeper wedge in their relationship.

  Even though he never said too much about it, I knew it was hard on him when she moved to New York City, especially after she stopped visiting. I had seen him change a lot in that time, but still hadn’t experienced him actually hinting at the fact that I was once his daughter’s girlfriend.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but he spoke again before I could. “How do you feel about her coming home?” After just a few seconds, he added, “You know what? Forget I asked. It’s none of my business. That’s something you should talk to your mom about.”

  Clearly flustered, he turned away from me to take a look around my family’s Christmas tree farm. “It looks like that customer has chosen her tree. I better get over there to help chop it down.”

  I watched him walk away, then took in the sights around me. The Wright Family Farm was my pride and joy. It had pretty much become my whole life over the past few years. We didn’t have as many animals as we did when my dad was alive, but we still had enough to have a small petting zoo year round. That, along with the pumpkin patch and tree farm, kept the farm bringing in a pretty steady income. The tree farm was definitely the most popular farm event. We were the only place in town to sell real Christmas trees. No one else even attempted to. That was one benefit to a small town - people were loyal. The farm had been passed down from my great grandpa to my grandpa then to my dad and finally to me. It was legendary in town and no one even dared to get a tree anywhere else.

  I always loved Christmas on the farm. It brought back so many good memories. It wasn’t quite the same with just my mom and I left, but we made the most of it. Thinking of Christmas memories made my mind go back to Taylor. There was a time when the farm wasn’t my world, Taylor was. She was my past, present, and future. All of the plans I made revolved around her and the life we were going to make together. From the time we were young, Taylor’s plan was always to escape the small town life and move to New York City and I would have followed that girl anywhere. At least, I thought I would have until my dad surprisingly died from a heart attack, leaving the farm to me in his will.

  All of that wasn’t worth thinking about though. We had both made our choices and we had ended up where we were meant to be. At least that’s what I constantly told myself. My mind settled on the question that Mr. Bradley had asked me. How did I feel about Taylor coming back? I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss her anymore, so the thought of seeing her face again warmed my heart. It also reminded me of the heartbreak that took me years to get over. I wasn’t ready to experience those feelings all over again.

  Chapter 3: Taylor

  Once I had calmed myself down enough to make it to my car, I sent a quick text to my dad asking if it was ok if I came home for a few weeks. Then I sent another text telling him that the wedding was off. I didn’t give him any other details, but he also didn’t ask. That was how our relationship had been for as long as I could remember.

  About two hours into my three hour journey, a call came through from my best friend Josh. I hit the button on my steering wheel to pick up the phone over the car’s bluetooth. Before I could even say hello, Josh was screaming in my ear.

  “What the heck happened? Where are you? And why haven’t you talked to me about any of this?!”

  Josh’s voice was intense, but I was used to it by now. He tended to be quite the drama queen, but that’s what first drew me to him freshman year of college at NYU. He wasn’t like anyone from my hometown, which made sense since he was a very out and proud gay guy and those weren’t very prevalent in small town Pennsylvania.

  “Whoa slow down. What have you heard and more i
mportantly who did you hear it from?” I asked, trying to stay calm. I figured one of us ought to.

  “I received a text message from Cynthia, the maid of honor from hell, an hour ago telling me that the wedding was off. Side note - I hate that bitch. But anyway, how do you think that made me - the other bride’s man of honor and bestest friend - feel? I had to hear it from the devil herself rather than you.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. This whole situation was getting more and more ridiculous. “Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I myself just found out that the wedding was off about an hour before you did. Then I had to drag my broken heart and my suitcase into my car so I could make the journey home.”

  “Home?” Josh asked perplexed. “As in Pennsylvania?”

  “Yes. As in the place that I haven’t set foot in since before our junior year of college.”

  Josh sighed loudly on the other end of the phone. “Why didn’t you just call me? You could have stayed with me. You should know that by now. You’re always welcome.”

  I rubbed at my temples and wondered why I hadn’t actually thought of that. “I was in a panic. My whole world came crashing down in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t exactly think straight.”

  “I’m sorry,” Josh said, his voice taking on a more soothing nature. “How are you doing with this?”

  “With which part? The fact that I lost my future wife, apartment, and possibly even my job or the fact that I’m just an hour away from the town that I vowed to never return to?” I sneered.

  “Wait, what do you mean about losing your job? If little Miss My-Daddy-Is-The-CEO is trying to pull something, we can fight it. You can sue for wrongful termination.”

  I wiped at my eyes, but was surprised to find that there were no tears there. Apparently, I had dried myself out already. “They are giving me a leave of absence until the new year, but Stacy made it sound like they don’t want me back. The job is mine if I want it though. I’m just afraid they are going to make my life miserable until I decide to quit.”