Beyond the Storm (9780758276995) by Joseph Pittman

Author:Joseph Pittman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2013-04-10T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

THEN

Hopeless romantics will tell you that there’s no greater notion than love at first sight, when that instant and unsuspecting attraction immediately sinks deep into your pores and into your heart and down deep into your soul, shifting your perspective on the world, on yourself. For too many years, an adult, wounded, vulnerable, and uncertain, Vanessa Massey had resisted what others believed. The fantasy that, when it came to love and sex and men, was just that, something born of the fantastical. She hadn’t exactly been living a sheltered life during her transformative years in Europe, but as she worked, partied, lived—her free-spirited twenties somehow slipping into her early, sobering thirties—she refused to settle down with anyone, much less settle for anything but the very best that life had to offer. She had left Danton Hill on her own terms, determined to see herself grow beyond those imaginary but ever-present walls of small-town life.

She recalled her last night there.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving. When will you be back?” asked her friend Tiffany.

Vanessa assured her that she would be back, soon, “because my parents expect me to go to college eventually, and I guess I have to honor their request, and besides, we promised years ago that we would attend school together.”

Even to herself, she sounded thoroughly unconvincing. A broken promise, and not the first she would fulfill.

When her other best friend, Jana, showed up, she produced from her overnight bag a bottle of wine and a fifth of cheap vodka to celebrate the “gang’s” final night together. In Vanessa’s basement, they talked for hours. They drank, Jana and Tiffany, but not Vanessa. She wanted to remain fresh for her long day of flying, she explained. She wanted to keep her wits about her and experience the thrill of liftoff. The friends hugged, and a pang of regret hit Vanessa as she felt her friends’ warmth. Because she knew she’d been lying to them all night.

And then came that next day, just three weeks removed from the prom and high school graduation and all the juvenile insanity that came with being an entitled senior: being dumped by the cutest boy in school whom she imagined was the boy of her supposed dreams, going to the prom with a near-stranger and enduring the embarrassment of that night, being handed a diploma that felt as light as it did hollow. It was under such cover of darkness and remorse that Vanessa Massey said good-bye to Danton Hill.

Vanessa had gone on to live in the great capitals of Europe—London, Paris, Brussels—for the better part of a year and was glad she had done it. Wanderlust was a feeling never satisfied. Back home, no one had understood her desire to seek out a life without borders, and after a few months the wordy letters to her friends had become postcards, and then they had ceased. She moved around too much for any letters to find her in return. Taking a year off before college

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