Rekindled Love

Chapter 2

A few weeks went by without issue, my mother and stepfather allowing me to develop a nice little routine and settle into my new normal. Max was a good guy and I was truly happy that my mother had remarried. My father left when I was young, around seven or eight, and my mother didn’t remarry until I graduated from high school. She focused on her career: Dr. Michelle Garner, general surgeon. I was proud of her accomplishments, in the face of my father leaving us and her strength against the heartbreak. Even at my young age, I knew she was hurt. She did everything to hide the pain from me and she did well but I was an intuitive child.

She’d wanted me to follow her into medicine and although I thought it was great having a mother who was a badass surgeon, I didn’t want that path. I decided to embrace the world of information technology, opting for a degree in programming, naively striving to become employed by the likes of Microsoft or Apple straight out of college. The job that laid me off was great until it wasn’t mine anymore. Instead, I worked for QuantiComp, a small software and networking company out of Seattle from my mother’s basement. Yeah, I know. Naïve.

The best thing the company offered was the flexibility of the hours and the manager allowing me to practically build my own schedule on what was available. And, it paid decently enough that I was able to put away quite a bit during the time with my family. I stretched my limbs, sore from sitting behind the computer monitor for far too long, and headed up the stairs.

My mother was in the kitchen artfully crafting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my brother’s lunch. He sat perched on his booster seat at the table, his large observant hazel eyes watching our mother with scrutiny. “Mama! No!” he shouted before she continued, the knife slicing the crust off. It’s ironic; a tot dictating a surgeon’s deft precision with a sharp instrument.

She turned her back, looking my way. “Honey, could you grab the trash?” I nodded, and she turned, dumping the triangle pieces of sandwich on a bright blue plate along with steamed broccoli and blueberries. I gathered the trash and headed outside and that’s when I saw her across the street.

Her emerald eyes glistened in the sunlight poking through the dense cloud cover, meeting mine instantly. God, she was beautiful, her hair shorter than it had been the summer after high school, little blond tufts ruffled by a stray breeze. I hadn’t seen her in nearly six years, yet, when her eyes met mine, her gaze still caused my heart to race. Reese Garrett. The thought of her name made my breath hitch and my stomach whirl. I ripped my gaze from hers, threw the trash bag into the can, and ducked back into the house. s**t. s**t. s**t, she saw me.

What was she doing across the street from my childhood home? During high school, she and her parents lived in a cozy apartment above the bakery they owed downtown. Without a word to my mother, I grabbed a soda and a banana before heading back down to my dungeon to continue my shift.