Chapter One
Lucinda
“Don’t you dare look at me like I’ve lost my mind. This is brilliant,” I shout across the table and stare at my friend Jada, who remains unconvinced. For the last five minutes, I’ve walked her through my ingenious plan, expecting a standing ovation or at least for her to bow to my greatness. A plan that I half conceived with her in mind, her takes-no-prisoner attitude on constant display back when we both walked the halls of Spring Hills High together. I can’t believe it’s been eight years already.
Spring Hills, Illinois, is the middleist of all the middles of America, smack-dab in the center of the odd shaped state; annoyingly, just beyond a simple drive from any of the good cities. A fact that makes Spring Hills one of the quietest, off-the-beaten-path cities around.
Instead, Jada gives me her best don’t blame me head shake, which is usually accompanied by her patented I tried to tell you speech filled with the detached snugness of a mother raising her sixth kid and has seen it all before. Jada steals a glance over her shoulder, taking in the super-loud group of third graders hyped up on pop and sugary treats. They’re with me—part of my ingenious plan, which Jada has yet to endorse. “And their parents are okay with this, Lucinda? You are so going to so lose your job.”
My nervous fingers tap the iPad in front of me. The thought of losing my job was never a consideration. With her mention of it, I now see that it is a real possibility. She might have a point. I hadn’t really thought much of this through. We are sitting in a coffee shop in the town square, the kids not only excited about being away from the school grounds but also because of the treats I’ve used to bribe them.
I’ve been planning versions of this for months. But every version remained fluid. The early days were just me, my thoughts, and an Acme kit that Wile E. Coyote would have approved of. As I ripped each day off the calendar, my plans morphed, the confidence of the early days fading away, my plan shifting with my mood. My focus, however, was laser sharp on one aspect of this deed, the eventual outcome.
Total annihilation.
Collateral damage, including, apparently, losing my job, had never entered the equation. Raw emotions really can blind you.
I adjust the angle of the iPad; it is in camera mode—selfie mode, to be more precise. I stare at the iPad, barely recognizing the woman with the deadly stare of a soldier about to enter combat. My dark skin, makeup-free, is another clue to the serious nature of today. I adjust the screen, only my shoulder visible in the display's corner, the cafe’s entrance door thirty feet behind me dominating the remainder of the display. A middle-aged man carrying a coffee cup and a brown paper bag filled with goodness pushes out the door of Spilling the Beans. It is the most popular coffee shop in all of Spring Hills, situated in the center of the town square and the first stop of nearly every alumnus returning to town for the ten-year high school reunion taking place this weekend.
I swing my hand at Carrie, my teaching assistant and the one who is technically in charge of the kids. I volunteer twice a week at the summer day camp, helping Carrie learn the ropes of how to wrangle elementary kids. She starts this fall full-time at the local elementary school where I teach. I’m only two years in, but as she is learning, you can pick up a lot in a short period—trial by fire and all. The school always recommends new teachers spend a summer at the day camp to get their feet wet. Us newer teachers pitch in to help the overwhelmed newbies get their legs underneath them.
Carrie is going to be just fine. She’s frazzled, disorganized, and most days doesn’t know if she’s coming or going, so her training is proceeding right on schedule.
Today, I’m walking her through an exercise for an impromptu field trip. At least, that is what I shared with her. Jada knows the real reason I have the kids in the coffee shop midday, and she clearly does not approve. I’ve ignored each of her prior warnings and do the same with this one.
“You are the one who taught me to keep my enemies close…” I flick my attention back to Jada. We were classmates in high school. After an incident during my first year at Spring Hills, she adopted me as one of her besties. Just one of several she collected during high school. Jada tried a hundred times to school me in my reckless, self-destructive ways.
“So, when you strike, you connect—hard.” She completes my sentence the way we used to trade back and forth in high school. It’s been eight years since we graduated, but it seems like yesterday. They were days of joy and pain. We both carry scars, but only my cuts have yet to heal.
“It’s been years since Nate Adams set foot in Spring Hills. So don’t mind me for going a little overboard to make sure he’s within swinging range when I take my windup.” I inhale, expecting a rush of anger and hate to arrive with the mention of his name.. For years, just the mere thought of him would cause a burn in my chest, and not the good kind. The hurt migrated from my heart to my pride years ago when I mentally planned my revenge plot. Details didn’t matter. The final objective is all that matters—making him pay for what he did to me in high school.
Jada’s hazel eyes go wide, and I freeze at the chime of the metal bell above the coffee shop doorway. When she bites down on her lower lip, I know it’s time. I’m sitting with my back to the door, hence the iPad. I remind myself not to turn around, the need to remain invisible necessary for my plan to work. The sound of the kids laughing fades away, and I swear the world shifts to a slow-motion, black-and-white monochrome time capsule of yesterday. A slightly older, even more handsome version of Nate Adams appears on the screen in front of me, and this time, my body reacts.
Gone is the hate and anger, replaced instantly with the high school longing I thought I had taken out to the woodshed and destroyed years ago.
Nate is white, with dark curls that fall perfectly across his forehead, a strong jawline, dark hypnotic eyes, and the most kissable lips in the history of Spring Hills high. He holds the frame of the door open for a gorgeous woman behind him, ever the gentleman. The move gives me an opportunity to take him in. All of him.
He says something to the woman, and they share a knowing laugh. Their familiarity stirs up another set of emotions in me. Of course he wouldn’t come alone. He brought a date. His chuckle somehow floats in the air of the crowded cafe and reaches me. It is the sound of a satisfied, confident man who is still the master of his domain. He releases the door, and I get a full-on shot of his freaking still-perfect face. I continue my peruse and make a note of his new-to-him pencil-thin mustache, which would have been deemed illegal if he’d worn it back in high school. How is it possible that the most desirable and handsome man to grace the halls of our school has returned even more attractive? Life isn’t fair.
“I guess your spies were right.” Jada reminds me of why we are sitting here in the middle of the day.
I nod, unable to speak. Lucy, who works at the front desk at the hotel, is but one of the many people I’ve roped into my plans this weekend. Lucy texted me the minute Nate checked in to the hotel this afternoon. Many of the alumni returning to town for the reunion will stay at the hotel.
Lucy flagged him down when she spotted him leaving the hotel, ever the helpful staff member, asking if they needed help with directions or recommendations. Nate was more than happy to let her know he could walk this town with his eyes closed, happily sharing his itinerary of making a pit stop at the cafe before heading to the reunion open house at the school.
Lucy’s text barely gave me enough time to scoop up the kids for part one of my plan. She has been texting me every few minutes, wanting to know what comes next. Most of the details of my plan are on a need-to-know basis, and Lucy didn’t need to know. Her role is critical but is now complete. She’ll find out soon enough. If everything goes according to plan, today will go down in the laurels of town gossip.
Most of the people I’ve recruited are like Carrie, friends returning a favor without asking questions. For others, I had to reveal tidbits about my plan to get them on board. No one, not even Jada, knows all the details. “Yeah,” I finally speak, twisting the angle of the iPad to track Nate’s movement. He steps to the short queue at the counter and points to the menu board on the wall behind the register. “Do you recognize the girl he’s with?”
Jada and I graduated in 2014. This weekend is the ten-year reunion for the class of 2012. I fell hard for Nate Adams my sophomore year, his senior year. I was new to town and new to dating, both factors feeding into the destruction that followed.
I had no business being anywhere in Nate’s stratosphere, something he reminded me of nearly every time our paths crossed. I was young and naïve. Watching Jada effortlessly navigate high school, I thought anything was possible. It wasn’t.
“You mean the woman?” Jada reminds me we’re not kids anymore. I shoot her a short glare—message received—and turn my focus to the woman. She’s nearly a twin to the type of woman I’ve imagined he’d end up with. Where I am African American with twists, this woman sports perfectly styled blonde hair that cascades over slender exposed shoulders. She wears a flawless white cotton dress that stops three inches above her knees. She spins with a don’t you wish you were me laugh, which I’m not sure whether I hate or am envious that I don’t possess. “I don’t know her. My gut tells me she’s not from Spring Hills. I can ask Elijah.”
I nod. Elijah is Jada’s older brother and the reason she is back here in Spring Hills herself. She’s tagged along with Elijah for the reunion weekend. He’s a graduate of 2012. He and Nate graduated together but ran in two different circles. Elijah is a sweetheart and was a supersmart, introverted nerd. Nate was the extroverted, flirtatious heartthrob who never faced a day of difficulty in his life. When he encountered obstacles, he either conquered them or vanquished them. I fell into the latter category.
Nate completes their orders, taps his credit card, paying for both, and then turns in my direction. I squeeze the edge of the iPad so tight that my knuckles turn white. Don’t move, don’t move, I repeat in my head. Nate is staring head-on. I straighten my shoulders, hoping to block his view of Jada. If he spots her, he’ll rush over to say hi, a grace I know I wouldn’t receive if I sat in her seat. I gulp as my heart pounds in my chest.
“Lucinda…” I look up at Jada. Her lips freeze, half-open, eyes ping-ponging over my shoulder to me and back again. “Lucinda… what… are… you… doing?” She snaps short words of warning that put me on edge.
I hear a clicking sound over the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears. I can’t place the source of the sound. I mouth a response without a sound to her. What?
Click.
Click.
“Are… you… seriously… taking pictures of Nate right now?”
Click
Click.
I look down at my index finger. It is tapping the camera button on the iPad like a drummer after a double dose of Adderall. Two dozen thumbnail pictures of Nate fill the left side of my screen, each one slightly larger than the one before. Which means… he’s walking this way.
Click.
“Will… you… please… stop? Or turn down the volume,” Jada whisper warns.
Heat races to my neck. This is what happens when I’m in Nate’s orbit. I lose perspective. I lose control. I lose my ever-loving mind. This is why I had to recruit other people because if I left it up to myself, I’d never be able to execute what is necessary.
“Nate?” I hear his name and close my eyes. My plan is about to be destroyed before it ever gets off the ground. I purse my lips and prepare to face my demon head-on. “This way.”
Wait.
I don’t recognize the sound of the voice. It is filled with a breezy lightness, not impending doom. Plus, it’s coming from behind me. It’s not Jada speaking.
I flick open my eyes and glance at the screen. Nate is walking away, his back to me, his arm gently being tugged at by his date. She directs him to the stairway that leads to the second floor of the cafe, the wide space that overlooks the town square. “We can grab a seat upstairs; it has to be less crowded. The cashier said they would call our names when the order is ready.”
I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“That was close,” Jada whispers and pushes a loose tendril of her dark hair around her ear. “Now, do you see why this is such a bad idea? Will you put a pin in it?” She lifts her chin toward the stairwell. “It’s been a long time. He’s moved on, obviously. You told me years ago you were over this. Walk away.”
Her words don’t penetrate the walls I’ve had years to construct. Walls I thought were required to keep the pain away, not realizing in the process I had built a fortress around my heart. My anger and hurt formed an impregnable force field when it comes to men. The only way out for me is to destroy the barrier. And the only way I know how is to obliterate the man who made me build the walls in the first place.
I lay the iPad flat on the tabletop but not before stealing one last glance at the man I’ve vacillated from loving to hating and back to loving in my dreams for years. I push up from the table and clap my hands together. My movement is sudden, my clap loud, meant to get the attention of the children.
“Kids?” I cup my hands around my mouth and shout. “You remember the game we practiced? It’s time.” A chorus of excited screams fills the air, causing Jada to hunch forward and cover her ears.
“Yeah!” Little Rashad pushes through the scrum of kids, a backpack nearly half his size on his back. It takes both his hands and those of two other kids to help him lift it to the tabletop. The look of mischief on his face reminds me of why I recruited the class prankster, truly an underrated talent. “Listen up, everyone.” As the noise dies down, Rashad, in his element, climbs onto the chair next to Jada, who wisely scrambles away. “Ms. Lucinda put me in charge of the supplies. Line up and take one—only one.”
I take a step back from the chaos of sugar-filled kids on a mission. My plan is coming together before my very own eyes.
“Game? What game?” Poor Carrie steps to one side of me as Jada slides next to me on the other.
A sinister smirk lifts the corners of my lips, the first smile I’ve felt since I received the text from Lucy. “Step back,” I say to Carrie and turn to see the disapproving look from Jada.
“If I choose to do a bad thing, it doesn’t make me a bad person, Jada.” My mind is already racing ahead to the justification, the excuse every criminal keeps tucked in their rear pocket when they know they are about to do something stupid. “With Nate, it’s destined. When we are together, it has always been this way, either spectacularly special or stunningly bad. I’m no longer the naïve underclassman. I get to choose this time, and I’ve decided to do something bad.”
Jada is my good friend. We’ve seen each other through the roller coaster of growing up in a small town. I value her opinion. But Nate Adams has always been my blind spot. With him, it’s always been pleasure and pain. He’s the irresistible electrified third rail with six-foot-tall warning labels and alarm bells.
I ignored it all eight years ago, and they continue to ring loud today. I ignore the danger; I ignore the warnings from Jada. When I’m around Nate Adams, I don’t hear; I don’t see. I only act.
The speakers crackle above us with the voice of the cashier. “Order for Nate. Order for Nate—pickup at the counter.”
I turn to face the steps and whisper to the kids, “Places, everyone.” I hold my breath and wait for Nate. Eight years I’ve waited. Waiting is over. He’ll never see it coming.
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