Ten Years Later

January 2^nd

 

 

9:22 P.M.

 

She couldn’t wait to get out of here.

This had to have been the worst Christmas and New Year holidays of her life.

And she was only nineteen.

Amelia Lexis sighed to herself. She had hoped that her parents would be more receptive to hearing that she wanted to drop out of college. She had tried to explain to them that it was a waste of time and money for her to keep going when she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.

What was the point of going to school when you didn’t know what you wanted to study?

So, she had decided to drop out. She was in her sophomore year, and so far, she hated every single class that she was taking. Amelia didn’t want to be tied down, sitting in a room all day, studying, writing papers, studying for exams. That wasn’t her.

She wanted to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine, enjoying her life.

Amelia wasn’t quite sure yet exactly what she wanted to do, but she knew it was going to be something outdoors. Maybe she’d get a job at the local zoo. She liked animals, and she’d loved going there as a kid. Or she could be an adventure guide. She liked to kayak and ski and hike; she could definitely do something like that. She also liked sports. Maybe she could teach swimming lessons or coach sports. That could be fun.

What she did know was that she didn’t want to go through life going to a job every day that she hated like her parents had. Growing up, both her mom and dad had worked long hours—her dad in real estate and her mom in catering. They worked hard, and while they made good money and she always had the material things she wanted, what she’d wanted most was them and time together, and that she’d never had.

That wasn’t how she wanted her life to play out.

She didn’t want to spend every day doing something that her heart wasn’t in. She wanted to be excited to get up each day and go to a job she loved. She didn’t want to dread the end of the weekend; she wanted to long for it. Until she could figure out just which direction her life was heading in, she didn’t see the point of remaining in college. She was going to keep bartending and spending time with her friends, and then when she knew what she wanted to do, she would figure out what she needed to do to get there, and if necessary, go back to school.

It all seemed to make perfect sense.

But her parents didn’t see it that way.

When she’d sat down the day after Christmas to tell them that she wouldn’t be going back to college, they had gone ballistic. They’d lectured and ranted and raved and complained and carried on and on, refusing to listen to her side of things.

Why were parents always like that?

Why did they think they always knew better?

Sure, she was only nineteen, but that didn’t mean her views on life were in any way wrong. Why was it better to go to college, wasting her parents’ money and her time, while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life, than to work full time and figure it out?

Amelia had tried to tell her parents that, but they just didn’t get it.

As much as she had wanted to leave immediately, she had stayed through New Year since her parents were having a huge party New Year’s Eve that all of their extended family would be attending, and she’d wanted to catch up with her cousins whom she hadn’t seen in years. That week had been tense. She’d tried to avoid her parents as best as she could, sleeping late so she wasn’t out of her room until after they had gone to work, then going to a friend’s house in the evening so that by the time she got home, they had already gone to bed. It hadn’t been the way she’d wanted to spend the holidays, but it was what it was.

She hoped it wasn’t always going to be that way. Amelia loved her parents, and as crazy as they drove her sometimes, she knew they wanted the best for her. Right now, they just disagreed on what that was. Maybe once they saw that she wasn’t throwing her future away—which had been their way of describing what she was doing—then they would realize that there was more than one way to get to the same place.

That day wouldn’t be today, and it wouldn’t be tomorrow, but hopefully, it wouldn’t be too far away.

Amelia yawned as she turned onto the empty road that would eventually lead her back to the apartment she shared with her two best friends. She loved Toby and Grif; they’d known each other since kindergarten, and although both guys were super sexy, they were her friends, and she would never do anything to risk that friendship. Living with them had been a blast, and she hoped that they would continue to be roommates until they all fell in love and got married.

Speaking of falling in love, she really needed a boyfriend.

It had been four months since she’d broken up with her high school boyfriend. They’d gone to different colleges on opposite sides of the country, and although they had vowed they would find a way to make it work, they’d broken up over the summer when they both realized it was never going to happen.

She was lonely. Sure, she loved Grif and Toby, and they hung out together a lot, but they both had girlfriends, and whenever they did couple things, she always felt like the third wheel. There was a cute guy who came into the bar she worked in almost every night. He had an English accent and the dreamiest blue eyes she’d ever seen. Maybe she should ask him out. Sometimes they flirted, and he seemed to like her, but she wasn’t very good when it came to asking guys out.

Amelia stifled another yawn. She was tired. That kind of drained tired that emotional turmoil always left you with. It was going to be a relief to get home where she didn’t have to talk to her parents for a few days at least, maybe even a couple of weeks if she texted a few times.

A flash of red and blue caught her attention.

A police cruiser was behind her.

She was the only car on the road. It was a quiet one at the busiest of times, let alone at nine at night in the middle of winter with icy sleet swirling around outside.

Hoping it just wanted to pass her on its way to wherever it was going, Amelia pulled her car over to the side of the road, but the police cruiser followed her.

Had she been speeding?

She didn’t think so, but she’d been distracted thinking about the falling-out with her parents, so there was a possibility that she had been going a little over the limit.

Amelia chewed on her nails as she waited for the cop to get out of his car and walk to hers. She’d never gotten a ticket before. She didn’t usually drive much. College had only been a fifteen-minute bike ride away, and work was only a five-minute walk. The only time she ever drove was when she went home to see her parents.

She jumped when the cop tapped on her window, and then she rolled it down.

“Night, ma’am. License and proof of insurance, please,” the cop said.

She nodded and reached over into the glove compartment to fish out her proof of insurance, then pulled out her purse and opened it to get her license, then handed both to the cop. “Here you go, officer.”

“Wait here, please,” he said as he headed back to his car.

She rolled up her window and resumed chewing her nails; it was what she always did when she was nervous or scared.

The wait seemed like an eternity, but eventually she saw the silhouette of the cop in his headlights as he came back toward her car.

Good.

Now she could get back on the road. She still had another hour before she reached home, and she just wanted to get back, climb into bed, and go to sleep.

“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step out of your vehicle,” the cop said when she rolled her window down.

“What? Why?” she asked, confused. Maybe she had been speeding a little, but you didn’t get arrested for that, did you? She didn’t want to have to call her parents to come and bail her out on the heels of telling them she was dropping out of college.

“Ma’am, step out of the vehicle, please,” the cop repeated, his hand moving to rest on the butt of his gun.

Scared, but more scared to do nothing, Amelia unclipped her seat belt, opened her door, and climbed out into the cold.

“Turn around, hands on the roof,” the cop ordered.

She did as she was told—anything not to get in more trouble, and once he put her in his car, she’d ask what he thought she had done wrong.

“Sir, please, I didn’t—” Amelia started, but never finished her sentence. Something was slammed into the back of her head. and she dropped unconscious to the ground.