Back Where We Belong (A Second Chances New Adult Romance) by Alana Hart, Caia Fox

urges his friend after he has taken his turn. I always hated
that word “cunt” and when I hear it now, I feel physically sick.
    They say that one of the worst
things is how dirty you feel, but there are other things worse than that. You
have to live with the feeling of powerlessness that they did this to you and
there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it. I can never be free of that.
     
    ***
     
    I struggle on at college. I try and
concentrate on my studies, but I can't. It's no surprise to me when I fall
behind.

CHAPTER 26
LUKE
 
     
     
    God knows what happened to my
phone in the crash. I don't have Madison's number anymore, but I'll find her
anyway. Mom says she hasn't seen her. I don't know why she didn't visit me when
I was so sick. When I get out of hospital, I go to the beach house, but it's
all closed up. Of course it is. It's well past summer.
    I knock on a few doors and find
Jill to see if she has a number for Madison. And she still has it in her phone,
though she says she hasn't heard from Madison for a while. I call the number
Jill gave me but it doesn't seem to be in service.
    I have Madison's address in
Greenwich, so I find the number and call. I know I'll get short shrift from her
mother, but I have to try.
    “Madison is at college.” Her
mother talks like it’s beneath her to speak to me. “If you think she'll want
someone like you calling her now, you're very much mistaken.”
    “Please give her a message
anyway, Mrs. Collins. Tell her—”
    She hangs up on me.
    I call the college too, but they
won't give me any information.
    I give up then. There's no point.
I know if Madison wanted to see me she would have been in touch. She knows
where I live. Perhaps her mom was right about her, and I was just a diversion
at the beach. It's not much fun having a summer romance with a guy in a coma.
    She must have moved on. I can't
quite believe it. I thought we had something together, and she didn't even
visit me once. Or perhaps she did, but no one saw her. Maybe she came and was
told ‘only family visitors’ or something. I don't know. Whether she came or
not, she didn't bother to keep in touch.
    But I can't deal with it anymore. I
need to get my life back on track. I'm going to Chicago this week. It's high
time I got to work and made something of myself. It's time to focus on that and
forget about women for a while, or at least the one called Madison with dark
hair and eyes that are not quite blue and not quite green who broke my heart.

CHAPTER 27
MADISON
 
     
     
    I don't go back to college after
the Christmas break. I can't bear it. Mom says I have to go back but I dig in
my heels. Nothing she says can make me go back. And what was I doing there
anyway? It was just the thing everyone was doing.
    Mom keeps telling me I've wasted
every penny they paid for my education, that I'll never get that chance again,
that I'm stupid and ungrateful. But still I refuse to go back. I don't tell her
why. I know she won't believe it wasn't my fault, and I'm not strong enough to
deal with the things she might say.
    She's as bad as ever. I want to
mooch around the house but Christmas with her is so bad I can't stand it
anymore. I get a job in a florist’s but Valentine’s Day and all the red roses
are nearly the end of me. I know I'll never have that kind of love where
twenty-four red roses turn up at my door. And when a new art gallery opens on a
little side street, I'm glad to move there.
    Michelle, the owner, lives above
her gallery. She's friendly, but she doesn't ask too many questions. I like
that. We get along well together. It's calm and peaceful at the gallery. I love
the art work Michelle chooses to sell, and she says I have a good eye when I
make a few suggestions about how we hang the work of a new artist to present it
in the best possible way.
    I haven't picked up a pencil or
brush for years. I never did manage it that summer with Luke, but as life calms
down and summer comes around again, I start to