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Some may feel that romance or fiction writing isn't necessarily serious writing. I beg to differ. |
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A sneak peek at Some Wounds Never Heal - Due to be released January 2012
“Déjà-damn-vu,” Alexis mumbled, laying her head against the car window.
She and Jamar, her fiancé, had been traveling up Interstate 85 for the past hour, and the trip had grown old quickly. Her head hurt, she was tired of hearing the music on her iPod, and the constant view of the passing scenery would soon make her sick to her stomach, but not from being car sick. She just couldn’t bear the thought of fleeing yet another hurricane.
“Why couldn’t we have just stopped in Atlanta?” she mumbled again.
Jamar cut his eyes at her, not knowing whether to laugh or get angry. She’d been in this mood ever since they left New Orleans seven hours ago. With more than twelve hours left in the trip, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could put up with it.
“Woman, how long are you going to pout?”
“Until you explain to me why we had to drive all the way to Virginia Beach when we would’ve been perfectly safe in Atlanta or even South Carolina,” she snapped without looking his way.
Jamar held back a laugh. “How many people do you know in South Carolina?” “Nobody, but it would’ve been a hell of a lot better than going to fuckin’ Virginia Beach.”
“I thought you said you were going to stop cursing?”
“Shut up!” she snapped, staring angrily out of the window.
Running his fingers through Alexis’s long hair, Jamar sighed. “I know you have some bad memories there, but that was back when you were in college. I told you I’m not gonna let you dwell on that. We’re going because my boy is letting us use his timeshare so we can make this a vacation. On top of that, your cousin will be there. So, you won’t be on your own.”
Alexis continued staring out of the window, digesting everything her fiancé said. They’d been through all of this before. She understood why they were going, but she couldn’t bear facing the memory of her affair with Christopher thirteen years ago. She hadn’t laid eyes on him or his wife Andrea since she left Virginia Beach, and she wasn’t looking forward to seeing them again. What if they took one look at her and tried to go to war?
The fact that her cousin Brenda was also headed to Virginia Beach didn’t lend her much solace. After all, Brenda was still Andrea’s best friend. Even though Brenda vowed not to let the past rule their present, the drama would be there no matter what. She’d try hard to keep them from fighting, but even Saint Brenda couldn’t rule everyone’s thoughts.
Alexis really hoped everyone had gotten over the affair. She certainly had. Although she’d had her own losses due to the affair, she’d grown in many other ways. Her private practice was booming, she was well-known throughout the city, and her fiancé was a successful attorney. A couple weeks of sex when she was in college couldn’t outweigh any of that, could it? It shouldn’t, but who was to say that Christopher and Andrea had gotten over the affair?
She wasn’t so worried about Christopher. After all, it takes two to tango, and he made the choice to sleep with her behind his wife’s back. He’d be a fool to try to blame everything on Alexis. However, Andrea was a different story. She wisely blamed them both for the affair, but she’d never had the opportunity to give Alexis a piece of her mind. Brenda wouldn’t allow it. Now that Alexis was coming back, would Andrea take that opportunity? There was little chance that she wasn’t thinking about it. Andrea was from New Orleans, and Alexis knew better than most that a New Orleanian woman never forgets.
She watched a luxury car with Louisiana license plates coast past them. It was filled with boxes and suitcases, yet the driver was the only passenger. She guessed he didn’t plan on returning to her beloved city.
It just didn’t seem fair. Just when she thought she had gotten her life together, it had taken an ugly turn. Only three years earlier, she’d fled New Orleans with Tony, whom she was supposed to marry before Hurricane Katrina killed that dream. Instead of living the American dream, the man she loved decided to stay in Houston and unceremoniously ended the relationship.
Now, here she was engaged to Jamar and fleeing the city again because Hurricane Gustav decided to show its face. She knew Jamar loved the ground she walked on, but she couldn’t help wondering if this would be the beginning of the end. The similarities were too coincidental. Was history doomed to repeat itself? “Off in outer space again, huh?”
“What?” Alexis asked, shaken from her thoughts. She finally turned her head to face her fiancé. “Oh, yeah. Still thinkin’ about this drama you’re driving me into.” “You want me to turn around?” Jamar asked. “We can always go to Houston with your mom and them.”
She made a face and tapped him on the back of the head. As much as she loved her mother, stepfather, and twenty-year-old stepbrother, there was no way she would return to Houston after what she went through with Tony. She would take her chances in Virginia.
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