Chapter 12: A Secret For A Life(Mine)
I chuckled, careless, as I flipped the brown page of the book in my hands.
It was a mafia novel, one I’d grown attached to over the past weeks. The same one Valerie had slipped into my bag before leaving town.
Her presence had shifted something in me. Not love. But perspective. Maybe I needed to see myself more.
Maybe I needed to spend time all alone. All alone in happiness, I had to build out of the things surrounding me.
My eyes closed in quiet pleasure as I took a long sip from the glass of mango smoothie, sweet and deliberately chosen.
The sweetness touched my taste buds, softly spreading around in a flavor I could never tire of—, no, not in a thousand years.
I rubbed my stomach, and my baby kicked, and I read the next page out loud while
